21 
and shade trees. While the Willow has until recently been useful as a 
shade tree, when sta nding by the horse-trough or by the well, an occasional 
Weeping Willow being seen in towns, a new value is attached to the tree 
for the salicylic acid extracted from it, and in the Southern States there 
have already been established extensive plantations of willows, the 
twigs and branches being cut and gathered for the extraction and man- 
ufacture of this valuable remedy. 
The number of species of insects affecting the Willow in Europe is 
said by Kaltenbach* to amount to three hundred and ninety-six; of 
these ninety-four are beetles and two hundred and fifteen moths and 
butterflies; while the European Alder supports one hundred and nine- 
teen species of insects of different groups. 
THE SPRUCE CONE-WORM. 
(Pinipestis reniculella Grote.) 
This is the first occurrence, so far as we know, of a caterpillar prey 
ing upon the terminal fresh young cones of the Spruce. We have pre- 
viously ¢ called attention to the Spruce Bud-louse (Adelges abieticolens) 
which deforms the terminal shoots of the Spruce, producing large swell- 
ings which would be readily mistaken for the eones of the same tree. 
Another species of Bud-louse (Adelges abietis Linn.), which appears to be 
the same as the European insect of that name, we observed several 
years since (August, 1881) in considerable numbers on the Norway 
Spruces on the grounds of the Peabody Academy of Sciences at Salem, 
The species of caterpillar in question was observed, August 24, in 
considerable numbers on a young Spruce 10 to 20 feet in height at Mere- 
point on Casco Bay, Maine. The cones on the terminal shoot as well 
as the lateral upper branches, which when healthy and unaffected were 
purplish-green and about 14 inches long, were for the most part mined by 
a rather large Phycid caterpillar. The worm was of the usual shape 
and color, especially resembling a Phycid caterpillar not uncommon in 
certain seasons on the twigs of the Pitch Pine, on which it produces 
large unsightly masses of castings within which the worms hide. 
The Spruce Cone-worm is usually confined to the 
young cones, into which it bores and mines in different 
directions, eating galleries passing partly around the in- 
terior, separating the scales from the axis of the cones 
(Fig. 1). After mining one cone the caterpillar passes 
into an adjoining one, spinning a rude silken passage 
connecting the two cones. Sometimes a bunch of three 
or four cones are tied together with silken strands; 
while the castings or excrement thrown out of the holes 
form a large, conspicuous light mass, sometimes half as | Fis. 1.—Single 
pierced cone (orig- 
large as one’s fist, out of which the tips of the cones are nal). 
*Die Pflanzenfeinde aus der Klasse der Insekten, 1874. 
tGuide to the Study of Insects, p. 523, and Bulletin 7, U.S. Ent. Comm., p, 234. 
