260 WEST VIRGINIA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



especially destructive to the white pine is a snout beetle, some- 

 what related to the plum curculio and certain grain weevils, 

 but with totally different habits. It is a chestnut brown bee- 

 tle about a quarter of an inch long, with two dots on the upper 

 portion of the front part of the body, (thorax), and with two 

 irregular spots on the inner edges of the wing covers. It 

 passes the winter in the larveal stage in the outer wood or in 

 the twigs. The adult comes out in May to deposit its eggs in 

 the terminal or main shoots of young or medium sized trees; 

 also in the bark of logs or injured and felled trees. These eggs 

 hatch into white footless grubs which mine in the bark at first, 

 then in the wood or bark of the twigs until full grown, when 

 each grub excavates a cavity in the outer surface of the wood. 

 These cavities are just large enough to accomodate the body 

 of the grub, and are lined and covered over with fine wood 

 fibers, thus forming a snug cocoon in which it transforms to the 

 adult. 



The injury to large trees and logs resulting from the work of 

 this bark and wood miner is not usually of a serious character, 

 but when it attacks the main or central shoot of a young tree, 

 the injured part dies and this usually results in a deformed or 

 worthless tree. 



It is a widely dirtributed insect in North America and I have 

 found it common in the pine and spruce of West Virginia. In 

 1891 specimens were received from Mr. Hu Maxwell, of St. 

 George, Tucker county, in branches from Norway spruce shade 

 trees, to which it had done considerable damage. 



INJURY TO TWIGS BY THE SPRUCE GALL LOUSE, 1 



This is a minute, almost microscopic louse, which infests the 

 tender twigs of the native and cultivated spruce, causing swell- 

 ings and a thick cluster of needles or leaves on the twigs, and 

 when common on a young tree, many of the twigs so affected 

 die, and the tree is stunted in its growth. This is a common 

 trouble affecting the spruce in different sections of the State, 

 and was reported as especially common and destructive to 



1 Chermes abietis. Linn. 



