INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 235 



NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN INJURIOUS INSECTS. 



BY A. S. PACKARD, JR., M.D. 



Some of the insects described below have been known for 

 some years to be dangerous pests in our orchards and gardens, 

 while others are described which are new to science, and have 

 only recently obtruded themselves on the notice of agricultu- 

 rists. Each year witnesses the inroads of new depredators on 

 our fruits and field crops, while entomologists are detecting 

 each year the presence of new insects which prey upon forest- 

 trees, unknown to farmers themselves. The present contribu- 

 tion to applied entomology is offered in the hope that farmers 

 and gardeners may give increased attention to the habits of 

 noxious insects, and that improved means of withstanding their 

 attacks may be devised, and a knowledge of practical, or econom- 

 ical, entomology be more widely disseminated. Most of the 

 specimens mentioned are contained in the Museum of the Pea- 

 body Academy of Science, Salem. 



INSECTS INJURING THE APPLE. 



Tlie Apple-Bud Moth. — The most injurious enemy of the 

 apple-tree, next to the canker-worm, that we have in this state, 

 is a small, reddish-brown larva, which, during the spring of the 

 present year, threatened, in some localities, the extinction of 

 our apple crop. It was described by Harris, in his " Treatise 

 on the Insects injurious to Vegetation," (third edition, p. 481,) 

 under the name of Penthina oculana, and should now be named 

 Grapholitha oculana. The caterpillar is a small, cylindrical, 

 naked worm, about a third of an inch in length, and of a uni- 

 form reddish-brown, with small warts, from which arise short, 

 fine hairs, while the head and upper side of the prothoracic 

 ring, or segment next the head, is black. 



On the 15th of May, a partially grown larva was brought to 

 me by a gentleman in Salem, and afterwards, (May 17,) receiv- 

 ing others from Mr. W. C. Fish, of Sandwich, we published a 

 brief account of it in the " American Naturalist," a monthly 

 magazine of natural history, published by the Peabody Academy 

 of Science, at Salem. We at this time supposed it to be an un- 

 described species, until specimens of the moth, reared by Mr. 



