Fig. 286.— The Spruce louse.— From Packard. 
SPRUCE PLANT LICE. 853 
37. The spruce bud-louse. 
Adelges abieticolens Thomas. 
Order Hemiptera ; family Aphid^e. 
Deforming the terminal shoots of the spruce, producing large swellings, which 
would be readily mistaken for the cones of the same tree. 
We take the following account and illustration from our Guide to 
the Study of Insects : 
The genus Adelges was proposed by Vallot for certain broad, flattened plant- 
lice which attack coniferous trees, often raising swellings on twigs like pine and 
spruce cones. The antennas are short, 5-jointed and slender ; there are three straight 
veinlets arising from the main sub- 
costal vein and directed outwards, 
and there are no honey tubes ; other- 
wise these insects closely resemble 
the Aphides. A species closely re- 
lated to the European Adelges 
(Chermes) coccineus of Ratzeburg, 
and the A. slrobilobius of Kaltenbach, 
which have similar habits, we have 
found in abundance on the spruce in 
Maine, where it produces swellings at the ends of the twigs resembling in size and 
form the cones of the same tree. We would add that each leaf-bud is enlarged, 
having an Adelges under it. As those nearest the base mature first and leave their 
domicile, the deformed leaf-bud stands out from the axis of the shoot, thus giving 
the cone-like appearance to the end of the shoot. 
This has since been described by Prof. Cyrus Thomas in his Third 
Report on the Injurious Insects of Illinois, p. 156. 
38. The European spruce bud-louse. 
Adelges abietis Linn. 
We observed this species in considerable numbers on the Norway 
spruces on the grounds of the Peabody Academy of Science at Salem, 
in August, 1881. The deformation produced in the terminal buds and 
twigs were like those figured in Ratzeburg's Die Waldverderbniss, Bd. 
i, PI. 28, figs. 1, 2. 
39. Spruce-tree plant-louse. 
Lachnus abietis Fitch. 
Occurring on Abies nigra; the wingless females pubescent, broadly 
oval, blackish, clouded with brown, with a faint ashy stripe on the 
back ; under side mealy, with a black spot near the tip ; antennae dull 
white, with a black ring at the tip of each joint. Length to the tip of 
the abdomen 0.15 inch. (Fitch.) 
It is probably this species which we have found in abundance on the 
terminal branches of spruces at Brunswick, Me., in July and August. 
