692 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
dators moreover have carnivorous and parasitic insect destroyers 
which subsist upon them in various ways. And in addition to 
all these, there are still other insects which live upon the fungous 
plants growing upon this tree. Thus, as M. Perris well observes, 
this one tree is necessary for the existence of a vast concourse 
of animals of this class, and were it destroyed it would cause 
the immediate ruin of such a multitude of species and such a 
throng of individuals, that we may well ask if the consequences 
of such an event, apparently of little importance, would not in 
reality result in great physical disorder—if the rupture of this 
single link would not produce a commotion in the whole length 
of the chain and convulse the laws which regulate the natural 
world. 
On perusing the list of M. Perris above mentioned, and the 
works of other foreign authors who treat upon the same subject, 
every one will be struck with the close correspondence between 
the insects infesting the pines in Europe and in this country. 
Each European species appears to have a representative upon 
this side of the Atlantic, closely related to it and depredating 
upon the tree in the same manner, and accompanied also and 
preyed upon by insect destroyers which are equally similar. 
Only one prominent exception do we observe, to what has now 
been stated. We have in this country no insect occupying the 
place of the Pine processionary moth ( Thaumatopoea Pityocampa,) 
the most formidable enemy to the leaves of the pine of any insect 
known to us, the caterpillar of which makes its appearance in 
July and August, in numerous companies, each company form¬ 
ing a cobweb-like nest, like that of our common apple-tree 
caterpillars, this nest being usually placed on the tip of a limb, 
the worm reposing in it through the winter and continuing its 
devastations the following spring, often killing the limb on which 
it resides. The only worm which we have in the State of New- 
York, which lives in societies upon the pine, stripping particular 
limbs of their leaves, is a species of saw-fly, (see No. 273,) 
analagous to the pine saw-fly (Lnphyrus Pini) of Europo. 
Our knowledge of the insects which prey upon the pines and 
other evergreen trees in this country, is at this day quite limited 
and imperfect, extending chiefly to the larger species only; ami 
of most of these very little is known, beyond the general fact 
