40 



SOME SHADE-TREE INSECTS OF SPRINGFIELD AND OTHER NEW 



ENGLAND CITIES. 



By L. O. Howard, Washington, D. C. 

 THE ELM LEAF-BEETLE. 



It is not worth while to speak of any shade-tree insects in Springfield 

 at the present time other than the ehn leaf-beetle, GcderucelJa Juteola 

 {xanthomekcna), and the woolly maple leaf-louse (Pseudococciis aceris), so 

 I shall confine my remarks in the main to these. In July I took a rather 

 rambling trip through Connecticut and Massachusetts, largely with a 

 view to the settlement of the northern boundary in New England of 

 certain injurious insects, a matter which I had found it difficult to settle 

 by correspondence, and the elm leaf-beetle soon became the most inter- 

 esting feature of the little investigation. 



It is now a number of years since this insect in its slow progress 

 moved up the Hudson Eiver to Albany, but it seems to be very recently 

 that it has begun a similar march np the Connecticut Eiver in New 

 England, although for many years it has been known on both sides of 

 Long Island Sound. Even New Haven, as far south as that city lies, 

 has known this insect for but a few years, and at Hartford, although 

 this season the trees are brown and bare, little work w^as done by the 

 beetle last year, and in 1893 Hartfordites were unfamiliar with it. 



In Massachusetts there has never been a verified iniblished statement 

 of its occurrence before the present season. 



Coming westward from Boston on the Boston and Albany Eoad in the 

 third week of July, and stopping off at many points in search of the 

 insects I had listed, I first found the elm leaf-beetle here in Si)ringfield. 

 At that time only here and there a tree was damaged, and in no case 

 was the foliage nearly all eaten. Eealizing that the insect had prob- 

 ably spread still farther up the valley, I traced it northward. At 

 Holyoke and Northami)ton I found it about as bad as at Springfield. 

 At Amherst I found it upon nearly ail of the trees examined, although 

 no esi)ecial damage had been done; and at Millers Falls, only 12 miles 

 south of the State line, it was found rather abundantly upon a few trees. 



I had not time to pursue the insect farther, but a few specimens 

 received since indicate that it has spread in small numbers some 50 

 miles farther up the valley. 



There seems to be no reason to suppose that the elm leaf-beetle will 

 not multiply and become the same grievous enemy to elm shade trees 

 in Springfield, Northampton, and Amherst in another year or two that 

 it has been this year in Hartford and New Haven and for many years 

 in other cities in Atlantic States south to North Carolina. Whether it 

 will spread to any considerable extent east and west of the Connecticut 

 Eiver Valley in Massachusetts remains to be seen. It may do so, but 



