346 WEST VIRGINIA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



CONDITIONS ON WILLIAMS RIVER. 

 IN THE SRRUCE. 1 



On May 6th I entered the black spruce forest on the head of 

 Williams river, where I found the conditions about the same as 

 in the spruce forests of Randolph county in June, 1892. The 

 trouble had apparently not extended much beyond the first 

 attack in the spring and summer of 1892. 



Numerous trees were here examined by the help of Andy 

 Taylor, (of deer hunting and trout fishing fame, who was also 

 an expert with the ax). While no trees were found in which 

 the destructive bark beetle had bred, all the dead trees exam- 

 ined showed evidence of the attack of this species, and that it 

 had been the prime cause of the death of the trees; but the 

 spruce bark beetle (Polygraphus rufipennis) in all stages was 

 exceedingly common in the bark, and it was very evident that 

 while the trees might have recovered from the attack of Den- 

 droctonus frontalis if they had not been attacked by Poly- 

 graphus rufipennis. None of the turpentine bark beetles, so 

 common in the pine, were observed in the spruce, and the only 

 indications of their presence here were a few wing covers under 

 loose bark on a dead tree. 



SWARMS OF BARK BEETLES. 



Returning to Morgantown on May 12th, 1 learned from my 

 assistant Mr. W. E. Rumsey and others, that a great swarm of 

 bark beetles had passed through Morgantown on May 4th. They 

 were especially abundant in and around furniture factories and 

 new houses that were being painted, and wherever there was 

 an odor of turpentine. In fact, they came as it was expressed, 

 "like a hail storm," into open windows and doors, and was the 

 cause of considerable alarm on the part of the inhabitants, who 

 thought that a plague of bugs had visited the place. The new 



\Dryocoetes autographus was common in the bark at the base of the trees, Dryocoetes 

 granicollis and Crypturgus pusillus were common in the bark associated with Poly- 

 graphus ruflpennis, Gnathotrichus materiarius and Xyloterus lineatus (bimttatus) were 

 frequent in the sapwood . Two parasites of Polygrayhus were subsequently bred from 

 cocoons and larvae taken in its larvae galleries; namely a Braconid and Uecidostiba 

 polygraphi, also a fly, the larva of which is an enemy of this species ; larvae of the long 

 horn beetle (Phymatodes dimidiatus) were common in the outer bark of dead trees and a, 

 CryphaluB species was cut from the bark of a small tree. 



