1834.] Entomology. 425 
the larch worm, the defoliation of spruces and firs repeated two 
and perhaps three summers is sufficient to either kill the tree out- 
right, or so weaken it that bark-boring beetles can complete the 
The spruce-bud worm, as we observed in Cumberland county, 
also at Phillips, and near the Rangeley lakes, on the road from 
Phillips to Rangeley, where the trees by the roadside, as well as 
in the woods, were attacked by them, so that they looked as if a 
light fire had passed through them ; feeds upon the leaves or 
needles of the terminal shoots, both the first and previous year's 
growth. The worm gnaws the base of the needles, separating 
them from the twig, meanwhile spinning a silken thread by which 
the needles and bud-scales are loosely attached to the twig; the 
tolling caterpillars, in a regular tube. 
a caterpillar sometimes draws together two adjacent shoots, 
ut thi 
è 
abundant where the dead or partially dead spruces abounded ; 
but individual worms could be obtained by beating any spruce or 
rın any locality, showing that in years of immunity from its 
insect is a common and widespread species. We 
rough all-the Rangeley lakes, and going from Errol, N. H., to 
in, Gorham, Jackson, and Conway, N. H., we found that the 
Tin and firs throughout Northwestern Maine and the White 
d i à 
ia at the water’s edge of the middle lakes were evi- 
dams q es sa the high water held in by the middle and lower 
