746 Firm kkport of the entomological commission. 
We reproduce, with the author's permission, the greater part of Mr. 
Scudder's pamphlet with the above title, published l>y the Massachu- 
setts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Boston, L883: 
Tin- pines <>n tin- island of Nantuekejl Pfaus rigida Miller), set out some twenty or 
thirtj dying iu large nnmbers from ■ cause hitherto unknown. 
it many havi- already perished, un<l mosl of the living trees look >ickly. On 
tin- "Old South Road," from Nantucket to Siasconset. all the trees on one >i<!e of the 
road are quite dead. <»r fad dying, while upon the opposite they are comparatively 
healthy Looking, although seriously affected. 
On September 19, 1876, I went to this spot to discover, if possible, the difficulty. 
I ohose first a dead tree on Mr. Crosby's land, and cut it down, carefully examining 
the trunk, boughs, twigs, hark, and roots: there was no sign of the work of any 
insect sufficient to have caused the death of the tree — none more than would lie 
found on any healthy tie.-. Next I -elected a tree that was nearly dead, the upper- 
most houghs only heiug in leaf, and a few hunches of needles appearing at different 
points on the trunk. I cut this down and examined the truuk. boughs, l»ark. and 
is beforej with negative results : hut when I searched the living twigs I found. 
always at the extreme tips, a great many recently dead needles, and in connection 
with them a small lephiopterous insect, and in such manners, both here and on hun- 
dredsof trees afterwards examined, as to leave no room for doubt that this insect 
is the sole cause of the trouble. The only other insect at all common was the larva 
of a geometrid moth, which had nibbled the leaves extensively, hut not enough to 
cause serious damage, or to strike at all at the life of the tree : wherever the mark 
of the blight was found upon living trees the first-mentioned insect was present in 
vast numbers, and very nearly all the damage that had heen indicted was directly 
traceable to its devastations. It is a minute moth of the family of Tortricidae, refer- 
able to the genus Retinia (or Coccyx of some authors), and may be described as fol- 
low s : 
Head covered, especially above, with hoary tipped, smoky-brown scales, giving it 
a speckled appearance : palpi rather longer than the head, the middle joint expand- 
ing into a compressed disk-like plate, half as large as the head, and covered with 
silvery gray scales, which are dusky towards the base, the apical joint minute, slen- 
der, dusky : auteume equally and narrowly aunulated with dark brown and white. 
Thorax and patagia of much the same color as the summit of the head, but the front 
portion of each tinged with pale nmber, while the hinder portion inclines to silvery 
gray, sometimes to a decided degree. 
The ground color of the front wings is divided between a dull yellowisb umber 
and a deep reddish umber, deepening at points to a bright ferruginous. The former 
prevails in the lower half of the outer two-thirds of the wing, and in an oblique sub- 
apical band, subparallel to the outer margin. The latter elsewhere, but becoming 
Bubinfuscated in the basal third of the wing: the brightest parts of this tint are 
found in a large quadrate patch depending from the middle of the costa. and an 
oblique, slightly arcuate streak, directed inward from the apex, and often continued 
a little out of line over the lower half of the wing, breaking the lower pais patch iu 
the middle of the outer half of the wing. Both of these umber tints are overlaid 
by frequent trai I or broken stripes of lustrous pearly gray, which, with 
the diversity o( the ground color, give the insect a very variegated appearance. 
Nearly all of these pearly stripes run at right angles to the costa. and are distributed 
as follows: The most important and persistent are the two broadest, which divide 
the wing into nearly equal thirds, the outer striking the inner angle of the wing 
where the fringe terminates; another, nearly as constaut, crosses the wing a little 
beyond the middle, is slightly bowed outward, and united at the middle with the 
outer of the two already mentioned, forming with it an H. with one straight and 
one bowed leg: often, on the left wing, it more nearly resembles a K: besides these 
