THE PITCH-DROP WORM. 731 
63. JEgeria piriorum Behrens, MS. 
11 Mr. Behrens sends me a colored drawing and description of an 
insect to which he gives the above name. It comes from Monterey, in 
Pinus insignis, from which larvae have been obtained. From these 
larvae he bred one specimen from which the drawing was made. He 
says the larva lives under the bark of the tree, feeding on the inner 
bark and perhaps outer wood. From the wound made by the larva 
there is quite a flow of resin, the pupa being formed in the inner flakes 
of this resin. By detaching such flakes of resin, 5 or 6 inches long, 
about as wide, and more than an inch in thickness, pupae and larvae 
have been discovered nicely ensconced in rounded holes next to the 
bark. 
" The wings are vitreous with golden scales scattered over the sur- 
face, the veins dark ; legs dark and golden ; body steel blue with six 
golden bands, the last the terminal tuft. 
" Mr. Behrens did not state whether the specimen was a male or a 
female, but I think from the drawing it was a male." (G. H. French in 
Can. Ent, xxi, 163, Sept., 1889.) 
64. The pitch- drop worm. 
Nephopteryx (Pijiipestis) zimmermanni Grote. 
Order Lepidoptera; family Pyralidjd. 
In June and July wounding the trunk of the red and white pine 
below the insertion of the branches, the presence of the larva being 
detected by the exuding pitch ; the larva livid or blackish green, eat- 
ing on the inner side of the bark and making furrows in the wood ; in 
July spinning a papery cocoon, the moth appearing from ten to four- 
teen days afterwards. 
Mr. A. R. Grote has called attention in the Canadian Entomologist 
(vol. ix, p. 161) to this pest of the red pine (Pinus resinosa) and white 
pine (Pinus strobus). The caterpillar occurs in the months of June and 
July, when the trees affected show by the exuding pitch that they are 
suffering from the attacks of this insect. The wound occurs on the 
main stem below the insertion of the branch. The worm in July spins 
a whitish, thin, papery cocoon in the mass of exuding pitch, which 
seems to act as a protection to both the larva and the chrysalis. The 
moth appears in ten to fourteen days after the cocoon is spun. 
Mr. Grote adds that the worm usually, infests the main stem at the 
insertion of the branches ; and from the fact that the pitch of the trees 
protects the caterpillars no wash would injure the insect; hence exter- 
mination with the knife is the only remedy. 
In vol. x of the same journal (p. 20) Mr. C. D. Zimmerman, the origi- 
nal discoverer of this pest, gives some further account of it. He writes 
