REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



377 



(Tortrix fumiferana) was beaten from a young spruce July G. Here, 

 however,* as everywhere else, dead spruces occasionally occurred whose 

 bark was filled with Scolytid beetles. 



From E. S. Coe, esq., of Bangor, to whom we are indebted for infor- 

 mation regarding the destruction of spruce timber in Maine, we learned 

 that large tracts of spruce timber near Kennebago Lake, on the height 

 of laud between the Androscoggin and Forks of the Kennebec, had been 

 destroyed. 



Mr. (Joe also informed us that he learned from General Smith, of 

 Norridgewoek, that the spruce growth about that town and Waterviile 

 early in this century had been diseased, and died very much as in the 

 past few years. 



From various persons we learned that the evil is now abating, and 

 without doubt if the tracts of dead spruce could, at least those near set- 

 tlements or villages, be cut down and removed, leaving, however, the 

 spruce undergrowth, a new growth of spruce would spring up, which 

 in forty or fifty years could be profitably lumbered. 



CONDITION OF THE HACKMATACK IN 1884. 



The larches, or hackmatacks, throughout the region passed through 

 the past summer have been examined with a good deal of interest in 

 order to note the effects produced by the ravages of the larch-worm 

 (Nematus erichscnii) during the two preceding summers. In our last 

 report we gave the history and degree of ravages caused by this worm. 



The hackmatack, or larch, is a very hardy tree, only less so than the 

 spruce, as it grows near the northern limit of trees and is commonly 

 associated with the spruce on the bleak, almost treeless, coast of 

 Northern Labrador, where we have seen it in abundance, though 

 dwarfed compared with the size it attains in Northern Maine and New 

 Brunswick. 



As the worm does not appear until early in July, it had not of course 

 begun its work at the time we were in Northern New York. Throughout 

 Northern Maine this saw-fly was rarely seen. At Woodstock, New Bruns- 

 wick, the freshly-hatched worms were detected about the 1st of July, 

 but the larches observed along the road from Presque Isle to Ashland 

 and Patten were but slightly affected. The flies were scarce, a great 

 falling off in numbers from the previous years, and the trees during 

 the first week of July were but slightly affected. When the worms 

 have attained a considerable size, and have been destructive to the 

 leaves, the trees begin to turn brown and to present a very characteris- 

 tic appearance, as if a light fire had passed through them. Only at a 

 point along the railroad south of Dover, Me., were a few larches seen 

 which had turned somewhat brown, and there were a few slightly 

 brown trees seen from the cars between Bangor and Augusta. Later 

 in the season, in August, after the worms had disappeared at Bruns- 

 wick, the larches were found to have been but slightly harmed by the 

 few worms hatched out this summer. 



On the whole, then, while a small proportion of larches have been 

 killed by this worm, this vigorous tree, though defoliated for two suc- 

 cessive summers, seems in the majority of cases to survive the loss of 

 its leaves, though it threw out much shorter ones the present summer. 

 Possibly 10 per cent, of our northern larches died from the attacks of 

 this worm. Very probably the numbers of this insect will diminish 

 during the next year, and the species may ultimately become as rare 

 as it has always been in Europe, until a decrease in As natural insect 

 parasites, and favorable climatic causes induce its undue multiplication. 



