REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I9IO 37 



Agriculture. At this time the galls were just opening and hosts of 

 plant lice were issuing from their orifices. The aphids present a 

 general resemblance to those of the more common spruce gall aphid, 

 Chermes abietis Linn., though the galls themselves are 

 easily distinguished by their greater size and especially their elon- 

 gate character. 



This new gall insect is a native of the Rocky mountain region 

 and the Northwest, having been described in 1907 by Prof. C. P. 

 Gillette, who states that he has observed this gall mostly upon blue 

 spruce in Colorado, from 4000 to 8000 feet altitude and chiefly upon 

 Englemann's spruce above the 8000 foot line. He adds that he has 

 seen specimens from the Northwest through the courtesy of both 

 Drs Fletcher and Hopkins, and in each instance they were the 

 typical galls of this new form. He finds this gall most numerous 

 in parks or lawns where the blue spruce and the red fir are clus- 

 tered together. 



Description. The galls (pi. 17, fig. i) are long, slender, ter- 

 minal enlargements having a length of two inches or more and a 

 diameter of approximately half an inch. According to Professor 

 Gillette, they are always terminal and kill the end of the twig, 

 except when the lice attack the bases of only a few needles on 

 one side of the new growth, such being uncommon. Professor 

 Gillette states that average galls have from 75 tO' 150 chambers, the 

 lice from five large sized galls ranging in number from 463 to 996. 



Aphids. The plant lice within the galls are light red in color 

 with the bodies more or less covered with a white, waxy secretion 

 which occurs both as a powder and as threads. (Gillette) 



Stem mother. In winter or early spring grayish, about .6 mm. 

 long by .3 mm. wide. Body almost black with a white secretion 

 radiating as short, stout threads about the margins of the body and 

 rising in a crest down the median line of the back. (Abstract from 

 Gillette) 



Adult viviparous female. Length i to 1.5 mm., width .8 to 1.2 

 mm., dark rusty brown, the dorsal surface mottled with dark spots, 

 the wax glands which occur upon all segments but the last. Glands 

 arranged as follows: A nearly continuous line on the anterior 

 margin of the head and two patches on a side near the posterior 

 margin, the thorax and abdominal segments with three glands on a 

 side, but segments five to eight of the abdomen have the patches 

 more or less united, especially in the dorsal rows, the other glands 

 on the dorsum with pores quite uniform in size and rather small. 

 Ventrally there is a pair of small patches upon the head behind the 

 bases of the antennae and another pair of about the same size just 

 in front of the middle coxae. Antennae very small, about as long 

 as the femora of the fore legs ; first and second segments short and 

 stout, about equal ; third nearly cylindric, nearly twice as long as 

 segments one and two combined and with two tactile hairs apically. 



