420 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



All of the larches within sight of the stage route from Newton's 

 Corners, at the foot of Lake Pleasant, to Sageville at its head, a distance 

 of 4 miles, had been almost entirely stripped at the earliest date above 

 named. The trees of this species of which there are many, in some places 

 it being the prevailing growth, could be recognized at the greatest distance 

 from which they could be seen by their nakedness, appearing as if dead, 

 which undoubtedly some of them were, as the result of the previous defolia- 

 tion. The elevation above tide of Lake Pleasant is 1800 feet. Not all of 

 the larches in the vicinity had been wholly stripped. A large one of 

 18 inches in diameter at three feet from the ground and reaching upwards 

 to a hight of at least 70 feet, standing alone in a pastured lot, and throw- 

 ing out long and thick branches, had its foliage less than one half eaten. 

 From a large number of larches of a moderate hight of 15 feet and under 

 that were entirely free from harm, it appeared that the younger trees were 

 not sought by the parent saw fly for oviposition. Whenever they had been 

 eaten, they were in the immediate vicinity of larger trees, which, having 

 been stripped, the migrants from them, in their search for food, may have 

 been able to ascend with difficulty in small numbers, such of the smaller 

 ones as chanced to be in their way. The tips of these small larches gave 

 no evidence of oviposition in them. 



He adds that this attack was also observed by him in the Lake Placid 

 region during the summer of 1888. This insect continued its ravages and 

 in 1891 Dr Lintner observed that many of the larches from the road passing 

 through Wilmington, and the Mountain View in North Elba, Essex co., 

 were nearly or entirely stripped of their leaves. Considerable numbers of 

 dead larches were seen which he thought had been killed by the annual- 

 defoliations by this insect. This insect has been injurious in later years, 

 and has undoubtedly killed a great many larches or tamaracks in the Adi- 

 rondack region. It has also extended its ravages here and there to orna- 

 mental trees, The investigations of the writer in 1900 showed that the pest 

 was present in numbers in the Saranac Lake region, and that many larches 

 suffered from its work, and later observations in the vicinity of Boonville 

 in 1902, showed that larches in that section were injured more or less by 

 this pest. 



Life history. The life history of this insect has been given by Dr 

 Packard as follows : 



The eggs are laid in the terminal young shoots of larch from about the 



