PINE SAW-FLIES. 
755 
silky gray; fore and middle femora and tibiae gray, with coppery reflections, the 
tibiae bauded with white. AH the tarsi gray, with whitish tips. 
Expanse. — Female, 18 mm . Habitat. — Ithaca, N. Y. Described from two females, one 
in the collection of the Department of Agriculture, the other in my collection." — 
(Comstock.) 
AFFECTING THE LEAVES. 
76. Abbot's white-pine saw-fly. 
Lophyrus abbotii Leach. 
Order Hymenoptera ; family Tenthredinid^:. 
From midsummer until October, and sometimes as late as November, clustering on 
the twigs and smaller branches of the white pine, soft, smooth-bodied, yellowish- 
white worms about an inch long, with three, aud posteriorly four, longitudinal rows 
of large black dorsal spots ; late in the autumn transforming in tough brown pod - 
like cocoons attached to the twigs, within which they hybernate, changing to pupa 
(in Illinois) about the middle of May, the four- winged fly with broad pectinated 
antennae appearing about the 1st of June. (Riley.) 
By far the most destructive insects to the foliage of the pine and fir 
are the different species of false caterpillars or larvae of the pine saw- 
fly or Lophyrus. When present at all these larvae exist in colonies, 
keeping together until they are ready to undergo the chrysalis state ; 
and after stripping the leaves of one twig or small branch, pass on to 
adjoining twigs until a large branch or nearly one side of a tree will 
be denuded of leaves. Such effects we have often seen in isolated pitch- 
pine trees in the woods of Maine. Still more destructive are these 
larvae to plantations of young pines on Cape Cod, where, if not pre- 
vented, they may strip tree after tree of a young growth of seedling 
pines. Moreover, an allied species (L. lecontei) is annoying to the orna- 
mental Austrian pines and 
Scotch firs on lawns and in 
shrubberies, so that we have 
placed these insects at the 
head of those destructive to 
the leaves of coniferous trees. 
Mr. W. C. Fish writes me 
that worms which I have 
identified as being of this 
species do "much mischief 
among the pines on Cape 
Cod. These pines are small, 
having been growing but 
from six to twelve years 
from seed planted by the 
farmers in order to renew 
the soil on their poorer 
lands. Whole acres of these small pines' are (1868) being destroyed 
Fig. 261.— Abbot's white-pine saw-fly ; 1. female, enlarged; 
2 and 3, pupa, enlarged ; 4, larvpe, natural size ; 5, co- 
coon, natural size ; 6, male, 7, female, antenna* enlarged. 
—After Riley. 
