21 



and shade trees. While the Willow has until recently been useful as a 

 shade tree, when standing by the horse-trough or by the well, an occasional 

 Weeping Willow being seen in towns, a new value is attached to the tree 

 for the salicylic acid extracted from it, and in the Southern States there 

 have already been established extensive plantations of willows, the 

 twigs and branches being cut and gathered for the extraction and man- 

 ufacture of this valuable remedy. 



The number of species of insects affecting the Willow in Europe is 

 said by Kaltenbach* to amount to three hundred and ninety-six ; of 

 these ninety-four are beetles and two hundred and fifteen moths and 

 butterflies ; while the European Alder supports one hundred and nine- 

 teen species of insects of different groups. 



THE SPRUCE CONE-WORM. 



(Plnipestis reniculella Grote.) 



This is the first occurrence, so far as we know, of a caterpillar prey 

 iug upon the terminal fresh young cones of the Spruce. We have pre- 

 viously f called attention to the Spruce Bud-louse (Adelges aMeticoJens) 

 which deforms the terminal shoots of the Spruce, producing large swell- 

 ings which would be readily mistaken for the cones of the same tree. 

 Another species of Bud-louse (Adelges abietis Linn.), which appears to be 

 the same as the European insect of that name, we observed several 

 years since (August, 1881) in considerable numbers on the Norway 

 Spruces on the grounds of the Peabody Academy of Sciences at Salem. 



The species of caterpillar in question was observed, August 24, in 

 considerable numbers on a young Spruce 10 to 20 feet in height at Mere- 

 point on Casco Bay, Maine. The cones on the terminal shoot as well 

 as the lateral upper branches, which when healthy and unaffected were 

 purplish-green and about 1J inches long, were for the most part mined by 

 a rather large Phycid caterpillar. The worm was of the usual shape 

 and color, especially resembling a Phycid caterpillar not uncommon in 

 certain seasons on the twigs of the Pitch Pine, on which it produces 

 large unsightly masses of castings within which the worms hide. 



The Spruce Cone-worm is usually confined to the 

 3*oung cones, into which it bores and mines in different 

 directions, eating galleries passing partly around the in- 

 terior, separating the scales from the axis of the cones 

 (Fig. 1). After mining one cone the caterpillar passes 

 into an adjoining one, spinning a rude silken passage 

 connecting the two cones. Sometimes a bunch of three 

 or four cones are tied together with silken strands; 

 while the castings or excrement thrown out of the holes 

 form a large, conspicuous light mass, sometimes half as ^i^SeAom^iiSg- 

 large as one's fist, out of which the tips of the cones are "•'>'■ 



*Die Pflanzonfemde aua dor Klasae der Inaekten, 1-7 4. 



tGuide to the Study of Insects, p. 523, aud Bulletin 7, U. S. Eat. Comm., p. 2:34. 



