BULLETIN No. 173. 



CHERMES OF MAINE CONIFERS* 



By Edith M. Patch. 



The Pine Leaf Chermes. 



Chermes pinifoliae Fitch. 



Chermes abieticolens Thos. 



It is manifestly a pleasure to reinstate a species lost in a 

 list of synonyms and an unusually interesting situation is found 

 in the present study which justifies removing a species merged 

 by error with two widely different Chermesf one on pine and 

 one on spruce, and uniting these two forms in turn under the 

 name of the form first described. 



The species under consideration develops in a cone-like gall 

 on the black spruce and migrates to the needles of the white 

 pine to oviposite and was named, as commonly happens with 

 aphids with two distinct host plants, separately in each situ- 

 ation. 



The evidence concerning each will be taken in turn. Fitch's 

 description of Chermes pinifoliae, % (though without figures 

 or much structural detail) is excellent in that it selects several 

 distinctly characteristic phases of this species and is sufficient 

 to distinguish it from any of the other Chermes recorded in 

 this paper. 



Fitch's published account of the species is here given in full: 



"267. Pine-Leaf Chermes,- Chermes Pinifoliae, new species. 



"Stationary upon the leaves, usually towards their ends, 

 puncturing them and sucking their juices, a very small black 

 fly 0.08** long to the tip of its abdomen, and 0.12 to the end of 



* Papers from the Alaine Agricultural Experiment Station : Ento- 

 mology No. 39. 



t Chermes pinicorticis and Chermes abietis. 



t Trans. X. Y. Agric. Soc. 17 : 741 ; id. Rept. Ins. X. Y. .) ; SS, 1858. 



** Fitch's measurements are given in decimals of inches. 



