SPRUCE BUD-WORMS. 845 
28. The reddish-yellow spruce-bud worm. 
Steganoptycha ratzeburgiana Sax. 
A caterpillar not before observed by us was found to be very injurious 
to the white spruce, and in a less degree to the black spruce on Squirrel 
Island, Booth Bay Harbor, Maine. July 11 the white spruce shoots par- 
ticularly were found to have been, in many cases, stripped bare of their 
leaves, especially the terminal fresh shoots. The shoots had been 
stripped either wholly or only on one side, some of the young trees being 
badly injured, and as they were used as ornamental shrubs around the 
summer cottages on that island, their beauty was seriously marred. 
They also affected the white-spruce trees growing wild among the rocks 
on the shore, while but a few black spruces had been injured. The 
shoots and branches were fairly alive with the moths, which, on being 
disturbed would rise up in great numbers and then settle down upon 
the leaves. Upon sending a specimen to Prof. C. H. Fernald, of the 
Maine State College, who is the leading authority on the Tortricidce, a 
family of leaf-rolling moths, he kindly informs me that it is a new dep- 
redator, only recently detected in this country. His letter to me reads 
as follows : 
Maine State College, 
Department of Natural History, 
Orono, Me., October 4, 1884. 
My Dear Professor : Your card and the insect have come to hand. I have taken 
this insect at Mount Desert in the latter part of July, 1882, in abundance around 
spruces in which the terminal twigs were destroyed. This was presumptive — though 
not positive — evidence that they were the ones that caused the destruction of the twigs. 
I found them again this summer, early in July, on Islesborough, around spruces in the 
same way as described above. I have also received the insect for determination from 
New Hampshire. This, I believe, is the entire history of the insect in this country, 
for it has never been sent to me except as above, and it is not in any of the collections 
of the country to my knowledge. 
I at once determined it to be a Steganoptycha, and as it agreed with nothing in my 
American collection, I turned to the foreign species and found that it was near, if not 
identical with, the E uropean S. ratzeburgiana Sax. I have three examples from Germany 
which vary somewhat, as do the specimens of this country. I have now given them 
a critical examination and comparison, and believe them to be identical. I made a 
microscopical examination of the genitalia of the males, and find th^rn alike. So far as 
any studies which can be made on the imagos go they would be regarded as identical. 
If you found the larvae and made any studies on them, I would be glad to have you 
compare them with what the following authors say, and let me know whether they agree 
or whether the early stages differ. See the following works, which I think comprise 
the entire history of the literature of the subject : Ratzeburg, Forest Iusects, Vol. I, 
p. 227, Plate 12 ; Fig. 3, Imago ; 3 L. , larva ; and Plate 13, Figs. 3 and 4, twigs destroyed 
by the larvae : Zeller, Isis (not in my library), 1846, 242 : Herrich-Schaeffer, §chmett- 
erlinge von Europa, Vol. V, p. 208 : Hememann, Wickler, p. 212, who states that the 
larvae live in spring in the young shoots of Pinus abies. Duponchel describes it on 
page 568, and gives a fair figure on Plate 266 under the name tenerana, mistaking it 
for Hiibner's tenerana, which belongs to another genus. Stainton's Manual, Vol. 2, p. 
