FOREST INSECTS AND FUNGI m 



THE SPRUCE BUDWORM (Tortrix fumiferana). 



The spruce budworm is an insect which, within recent years 

 at least, has not attracted widespread attention among foresters 

 and landowners in New England. Extensive killing of the 

 spruce about thirty-five years ago along the Maine coast is 

 attributed largely by Packard to this insect. However, in 

 Canada, in the neighboring province of Quebec, it is now a 

 serious pest, and there is reason to believe that in New England 

 also it may become dangerous. 



Form of Damage. The insect feeds in its caterpillar stage on 

 the buds of the spruce, and after these are destroyed it eats off 

 the needles, attacking them at the base. Besides the spruce, 

 other conifers may be attacked. 



Trees may be killed outright by the spruce budworm, if 

 defoliated repeatedly, but in the majority of cases the result is 

 the checking of the growth of the tree and the weakening of its 

 vitality. Indirectly this is of importance, since the weakening 

 of the tree's vitality results in its falling an easy prey to the 

 spruce-destroying bark beetle, which is a much more dangerous 

 enemy. Branches attacked by the spruce budworm have a 

 reddish-brown appearance, due to the bare twigs and to the dead 

 leaves, which the caterpillars have fastened together to serve as 

 a place in which to live. 



Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, F.E.S., Dominion Entomologist of 

 Ottawa, Canada, has studied the spruce budworm and the fol- 

 lowing account of its life history is taken from one of his addresses 

 published in the Report of the Canadian Forestry Convention 

 for 1911: 



"The winter is passed in the caterpillar stage, as a very small 

 caterpillar, we believe, in a little shelter constructed near a bud. 

 In the spring, when the buds begin to swell, the caterpillar begins 

 to feed and becomes full-grown towards the end of May and 

 beginning of June. They are then four-fifths of an inch long, of 

 a reddish-brown color, and have small light-yellow warts on 

 each segment of the body; the sides of the caterpillar are lighter 



