REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I91O 57 



upon the rougher outer bark, form the conspicuous felted masses 

 frequently seen, and therein transform to pupae. There are prob- 

 ably three generations in this latitude, the winter being passed by 

 the young in crevices of the larger limbs. Observations at Pough- 

 keepsie last fall showed that crawling young were very numerous 

 October 4th. Affected trees drop their foliage earlier in the fall 

 while that of others is still green and at least moderately vigorous. 

 This scale insect can be controlled by thorough applications, in 

 winter or early spring, of a contact insecticide, using i pound of 

 whale oil soap to a gallon of water. The kerosene emulsion, the 

 standard formula diluted with 4 parts of water, has been found 

 very effective in controlling the cottony maple scale and would 

 doubtless prove equally efficient in the case of this species. Several 

 oil preparations now on the market under various trade names have 

 also been employed successfully. 



FOREST TREE INSECTS 



Large black carpenter ant (Camponotus hercu- 

 lean u s Linn.). The work of this large wood ant is rather com- 

 mon in the Adirondacks where it appears to display a marked 

 partiality for balsam trunks, excavating them in a very characteristic 

 manner as illustrated and pointed out by the author several years 

 ago.' 



An examination of the balsam shows at once that the ants had 

 eaten out the softer portions of the wood, and left in large measure 

 the harder parts formed toward the end of the season when growth 

 was comparatively slow and the wood correspondingly firmer. This 

 style of galleries was also compared with the very irregular and 

 markedly different work of this species in elm. The latter is un- 

 doubtedly due to the fact that the fibers of elm wood interlace and, 

 as a consequence, there is very little difference in the relative hard- 

 ness of the wood laid down at different seasons of the year. The 

 past season we secured from Silas H. Paine of Silver Bay an 

 exceptionally fine specimen of the work of this species in poplar. 

 By reference to plates 19, 20, it will be seen that the method of 

 excavation is somewhat intermediate between that obtaining in 

 poplar and the elm and presumably explainable by the nearly uni- 

 form, soft texture of poplar wood. The general plan shows a series 

 of horizontal chambers connected by numerous more or less regular, 

 perpendicular galleries traversing the heartwood. Portions of the 

 galleries strikingly suggest the ruins of an ancient castle. This ant 



^ 1905 N. Y. State Mus. Mem. 8, i : 90, pi. 31. 



