28 BULLETIN NO. 3, DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



Brunswick from Bangor, the characteristic patches or large clumps of 

 dead spruce and fir were not seen until we reached a point south of 

 Bichmond, and near Bowdoinham, on and near tide water on the Cat- 

 hance River. The general absence of any extensive areas of dead spruces 

 around the Rangeley Lakes and the White Mountains has already been 

 referred to in our report. It thus appears that the injury from this worm 

 has been confined, at least south of Aroostook County, to an area on 

 the coast extending from Portland to Warren, and extending but a few 

 miles inland from the sea or tide- water. 



The injury resulting from the attacks of the bud-caterpillar are char- 

 acteristic, as we have stated, the trees dying in masses or clumps of 

 greater or less extent, as if the moths had spread out from different cen- 

 ters before laying their eggs and the caterpillars, hatching, had eaten the 

 buds and leaves, and caused the trees to locally perish. From all we 

 have learned the past season we are now convinced that the spruce bud- 

 worm (Tortrix fumiferana) is the primary cause of the disease on the 

 coast. As remarked to us by the Bev. Elijah Kellogg, of Harpswell, Me., 

 who has observed the habits of these caterpillars more closely than any 

 one else we have met 5 where the worms have once devoured the buds the 

 tree is doomed. This, as Mr. Kellogg remarked, is due to the fact that 

 there are in the spruce but a few buds, usually two or three at the end 

 of a twig ; if the caterpillar destroys these the tree does not reproduce 

 them until the year following. If any one will examine the buds of the 

 spruce and fir they will see that this must be the case. Hence the ease 

 with which the attacks of this caterpillar, when sufficiently abundant, 

 destroy the tree. We have not noticed that the spruce and fir throw 

 out new buds in July and August after such an invasion, the worm dis- 

 appearing in June. On the other hand, the hackmatack or larch when 

 wholly or partly defoliated by the saw-fly worm (Xematus) soon sends 

 out new leaves. By the end of August we have observed such leaves 

 about a quarter of an inch long. In the following spring a larch which 

 has been stripped of its leaves the summer previous will leave out again 

 freely, although the leaves are always considerably, sometimes one-half? 

 shorter. Xow, if any one will examine the leaf buds of the larch it will 

 be seen that they are far more numerous than in the spruce and fir or 

 other species of the genus Abies, being scattered along the twig at inter- 

 vals of from a line to half an inch apart. Hence the superior vitality of 

 the larch, at least as regards its power of overcoming or recuperating 

 from the effects of the loss of its leaves in midsummer. Besides this, 

 the bud- worm of the spruce and fir is most active and destructive in June, 

 at the time the tree is putting forth its buds, while the hackmatack, 

 which drops its leaves in the autumn, has become wholly leaved out 

 some weeks before the saw-fly worms appear. For these reasons, while 

 the spruce and fir usually die if most of the leaves and buds are eaten 

 after the first season's attack, the larch may usually survive the loss of 

 leaves for two seasons in succession. 



