1834. ] Entomology. 295 
a female in confinement, June 29, while engaged in the process of 
ovipositing ; we should judge that the operation of sawing the 
slit and depositing the egg required not less than five minutes, and 
perhaps not much more than that length of time. The fly had 
been evidently at work for some time previous, as a number of 
eggs had been laid along the shoot; she had begun at the farther 
end and worked down to the base of the new, fresh, green shoot. 
She stood head downward while engaged in making the puncture, 
and was not disturbed by our removing the larch twig from the 
glass jar and holding it in our hand while watching the move- 
ments of the ovipositor under a Tolles triplet. The two sets of 
serrated blades of the ovipositor were thrust obliquely into the 
shoot by a sawing movement; the lower set of blades was most 
active, sliding in and out alternately, the general motion being 
like that of a hand-saw. After the incision is sufficiently deep, 
the egg evidently passes through the inner blades of the oviposi- 
tor, forced out of the oviduct by an evident expulsive movement 
of the muscles at the base of the ovipositor. The slit or opening 
of the incision after the egg has passed into it is quite narrow and 
about 1;"" in length. While engaged in the process the antennz 
are motionless, but immediately after the ovipositor is withdrawn 
they begin to vibrate actively, the insect being then in search of 
a site for a fresh incision. 
After making the foregoing observations we found at Phillips, 
Me, July 1, and at Errol, N. H., July 4, numerous twigs con- 
taining eggs, and the flies were also observed upon the trees ovi- 
positing. Although the slit is at first closed, as soon as the em- 
ryo increases in size the twigs swell where they have been in- 
cised by the ovipositor, and the slits enlarge or gape more or less, 
becoming much larger and more conspicuous than when the eggs 
are first deposited. It would thus appear that oviposition takes 
place about a week later in the vicinity of Brunswick, Me., than 
in Essex county, Massachusetts, and about a week later in 
Northern Maine and New Hampshire than on the coast at 
runswick, 
When the larva hatches the incision gapes open, leaving an 
Pg hole. Out of this gape the larva creeps, and it rarely eats 
A terminal shoot, but crawls upon the leaves of the whorls next 
eet terminal shoot. At first it nibbles one side ofthe needle or 
ka faving it half eaten and rough, serrate, and partly withered 
in § the edge. The half-eaten, withered leaves of unequal length 
à whorl on the ends of the smaller branches enable one to de- 
; ecg Presence of the young worms on the tree. . 
„p ually after the young larvæ have shed their first skin, they 
aus. the verticils of the larch and almost invariably begin to 
eating acedles, one after another, beginning at the distal end and 
way leaf obliquely until only a short stump is left; in this 
“Y one verticil after another is eaten, and when the worms are 
