Report of the State Entomologist 307 



with its silken threads, and consumes one after another until only 

 their blackened remains are left. Later in the month and extending 

 into June, it spins together the young leaves and feeds upon them. 

 It also bores into the blossom-bearing tips, eating thfe pith and caus- 

 ing their death. The moths usually appear abroad in July, although 

 in rearing them I have had them emerge during the first week of 

 June. Their, eggs are deposited soon thereafter and the caterpillars 

 come from them in about a week. This is the second brood, and as 

 the leaves at this time are full-grown, their depredations are not seri- 

 ous, and have not attracted much attention. Large numbers of these 

 caterpillars are sometimes found on a single tree, where their pres- 

 ence readily arrests attention, and their injuries become serious from 

 the proportion of blossom buds destroyed. This pest is hardly known 

 in the western states. The present season has presented conditions 

 peculiarly favorable to their multiplication. The only way that 

 promises success in their extermination is by spraying with Paris 

 green or London purple about the time that the leaf-buds appear in 

 April and ten days later, and at intervals until the blossoms have 

 formed. The spraying, it will be observed, will have to be done 

 earlier than for the codling-moth. This early operation will also 

 destroy other species of leaf-rollers that make their attack simul- 

 taneously with the eye-spotted bud-moth. 



Cecidomyia balsamicola Lintn. 



The Balsam Cecidomyia. 



Dr. Roland Thaxter, Mycologist of the Connecticut Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, has sent me tips of Fraser's or the southern 

 balsam, Abies Fraseri, taken by him from the summit of Roan Mt., 

 N. C, in 1887, containing galls which are apparently identical with 

 those of the above-named species occurring on Abies balsamea in the 

 Adirondack Mountains of New York, and in New Hampshire (see 

 Fourth Report on the Insects of New Yorh, 1888, p. 60). The perfect 

 insect of thid species is not yet known. 



Inclosed in the closely-folded paper containing the infested tip of 

 A. Fraseri, a small Chalcid was found. Suspecting it to be a parasite 

 of the Cecidomyia, it was sent to Mr. L. O. Howard for name. Answer 

 was returned that as the specimen had lost its head and front legs it 

 could only be referred to the Pteromalince. In this group, the char- 

 acters are chiefly derived from the front legs and head, and it could 

 therefore not be placed generically. It apparently belonged to a 



