272 MAINE) AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I907. 



from the larval attacks in the stalks. In these treated plats 

 the fall generation appeared in October as numerously as in 

 'June and the Hubbard squashes were pitted thickly with holes 

 in which the beetles feasted until the squashes, which were 

 undersized anyway, were unpresentable for market purposes. 



Macrops vitticollis. — Besides the flea beetles, Dibolia borealis 

 Chevr., which riddled the plaintain leaves, Plantago major, all 

 over the State, plaintain crowns were found to be excavated 

 by numerous small beetle larvae. Some of these were collected 

 July 23 at Portland in order to secure the adult beetles. On 

 A-ugust 26, 2 beetles developed which proved to be Macrops 

 vitticollis Kirby. 



Sawflies. 



The birch sawfly, Nematus erichsonii, is again at work in 

 Maine upon the larch or tamarack, or as it is more popularly 

 known here, the "juniper/' By August 8 the work was mostly 

 in the vicinity of Houlton, but clusters of larvae still remained 

 here and there and it was gratifying to note that a fair per- 

 centage of these had attached to them the small white eggs of. 

 a Tachina parasite. The larvae of Crcesus latitarsus, a sawfly 

 common in the State, were received from Bar Harbor Septem- 

 ber 17, where they were attacking birch. The fir tree sawfly, 

 Lophyrus abietis Harris, was present at Seeket, where it com- 

 pletely stripped some fir trees and spruce. Cocoons were received 

 from this locality August 29 and September 10, and on the 

 latter date cocoons of the same species were received from 

 MacMahan, Sagadahoc County. The adults emerged from the 

 middle to the last of September. This species also attacks the 

 pitch pine, and seems to have a deplorable start in the localities 

 mentioned. 



An Ant Attack on Plant Lice. 



June 12, a birch growth was visited where great numbers of 

 a large and sprightly aphid, Callipterus betulcscolens, were to 

 be found both in late pupal and freshly winged condition. This 

 species is very active, running lightly and dropping from the 

 branch at the slightest jar, and were thus seen everywhere on 

 the ground as well as on the trunks of evergreens and other 

 trees where they do not feed. 



Ants were observed to be traveling to their nests with these 

 aphids in their jaws, both in the late pupal and the winged 



