832 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
had been cut off iu consequence of their widespread destruction by in- 
sects. Mr. Alexander informed 08 that the spruce trees were, in his 
opinion, killed by small caterpillars which have been at work for five 
years, bur whieh were most destructive in 1879. These caterpillars he 
described as being the young of a small brown moth which laid its 
eggs in autumn; the caterpillars hatching from them were not inch- 
worms, but when fully grown the body tapered towards both ends, and 
were about three-quarters of an inch long, and were most destructive 
June 20, when they are seen among the buds at the ends of the 
branches, where they draw the leaves together, eating the buds and 
not the leaves. He had also seen borers in the trees, but he thought 
the death of the tree should be attributed to the bud-worms rather 
than to the borers. As will be seen further ou, a number of caterpil- 
lars were found by us late this summer feeding upon the leaves of the 
spruce and fir, but the worm observed by Mr. Alexander was probably 
one of the leaf-rolling caterpillars, a species of the family Tortricida\ 
A number of spruces and firs with their leaves still on but of a bright 
red, were observed scattered along the roadside; but no signs of leaf- 
worms or borers were observed in such trees, although the dead, leaf- 
less trees were infested with bark-borers. 
I was informed by the late C. J. Noyes, esq., of Brunswick, who was 
a summer resident at Merepoint, that in June and the first week in July, 
1878, the spruces and firs were attacked by great numbers of u little 
measuring worms, like the currant worm in shape," which eat the buds 
at the ends of the branches ; since 1878 they had mostly disappeared, 
and in the summer of 1881 he had noticed only four or five. 
From Harpswell Neck we traced dead spruces and firs around to West 
Bath, where exteusive forests had been destroyed and numbers of dead 
hemlocks were observed, while the wood was attacked and the bark 
undermined and perforated by Buprestid borers, bark-borers, and the 
pine-weevil (Pissodes strobi). We have nowhere seen hemlock trees, 
which are more exempt than any other coniferous trees from the attacks 
of insects, so much infested. 
The death and destruction of spruce forests were reported to us at 
Rockland, Me., and at Calais, Me., the destruction having been observed 
by Mr. Sewall at the latter town in 1879. From these facts there is 
good reason to suppose that perhaps a third of the spruce and fir for- 
ests from near Portlaud to Calais have been destroyed by insects, most 
of the work of destruction having been accomplished four or five years 
ago, during 1878-'79. 
Similar damage has beeu done at points ten or twelve miles from the 
sea and in the interior of the State. The injury was especially noticed 
in North Topsham, near the Bowdoinham line. According to the state- 
ments of Mr. Willis, the agent of the Feldspar works in Xorth Tops- 
ham, forwarded by Dr. 0. A. Packard, of Bath, Me., the spruces were 
iu 1879 attacked by borers and also by small caterpillars, "not measur- 
