156 FIFTH REPORT OP THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
by this insect. Their habits are very similar to those of the fir saw- 
tly, Lophyrui abietii <>t* Harris, though they are more gregarious than 
he describes that species to be. They eat the needles down to their 
insertion, thus stripping one twig after another. The larvae spin their 
cocoons among the leaves, and the flies appeared about the middle of 
August. Out of thirty one individuals but one was a male." 
Professor Riley, in his Ninth Report, states that this saw-fly in its 
larval state is destructive in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. He 
states that the perfect insects are quite irregular in coining out of the 
ground, many of them issuing in May, but others not uutil toward the 
end of summer. u On opening cocoons that had passed the winter I 
have found many yet containing the larva the latter part of June, while 
others of the same brood had become flies six weeks before. * * * 
In ovipositing the female saws beneath the epidermis on one of the flat 
sides of the Leaflets, and pushes into the slit an egg,, which is whitish, 
ovoid, .0S mm long on an average. As the egg swells it forms a con- 
spicuous bulging of the epidermis, and the mouth of the slit opens and 
exposes more and more a portion of the egg. 17 It is preyed upon by an 
ichneumon fly (Limneria lophyri Riley). 
Dr. F. W. Goding, of Rutland, 111., sent me some of these worms, 
September 23, 1884, with the remark that they had been defoliating 
the white pine. " Over a quart was destroyed beneath one tree by 
kerosene." 
Larva. — Average length, .80 inch, though many will measure an inch. A soft, 
dingy-white worm, having often a greenish or bluish line superiorly. On all joints 
but the first, which is entirely white, two oblong square black spots along the back, 
and another somewhat rounder spot each side ; these become somewhat diffused on 
the thrse latter joints, forming on the last a single black patch. Three black thoracic 
legs, fourteen abdominal and two caudal prolegs. Thoracic joints largest ; the three 
last smallest and taperiug. Some are marked very regularly, while in others the white 
space on the back between the spots on segments 5, 6, 7, and 6 is much wider than 
between the others. This is probably a sexual difference, since those thus marked 
are shorter, thicker, and of a yellower white than those regularly marked. After 
each change of skin the head is at first white like the rest of the body, with the usual 
eye-spots black. No markings while young. 
A cluster of about twenty larvae probably of this species occurred on a 
twig of the white pine August 9, at Brunswick, Me. These molted for 
the last time August 11, the epicranium splitting apart on each side of 
the clypeus. They spun cocoons, but the flies did not appear. 
L. abietis, with regular but faint bauds, is evidently the primitive 
form, and L. abbotii and the other spotted larva? the secondary and later 
forms. How did the double dorsal line originate ? 
Larva.— Head black, body llesh-white, the black spots contrasting very much with 
the pallid ground-color of the body. A dorsal row of eleven pairs of black spots. 
each spot oblong and about one-third as wide as long. A row of eleven lateral black 
nearly square spots, which are a little longer than broad. Supra-anal area black. 
Thoracic feet black ; eight pairs of abdominal pale feet. Length ^2 mm . 
