520 
HYMENOPTERA. 
ornament, in this vicinity, have been attacked by swarms 
of false caterpillars, and, in some instances that have fallen 
under my notice, have been nearly stripped of their leaves 
every summer, and in consequence thereof have been checked 
in their growth, and now seem to be in a sickly condition. 
These destructive insects agree in their habits and in their 
general appearance, in all their states, with the pine and 
fir saw-flies, described by Kollar,* by whose ravages whole 
forests of these trees have been destroyed in some parts 
of Germany. It is probable, however, that the American 
fir saw-flies are not identical with those of Europe, as they 
differ from them rather too much to have orimnated from 
o 
the same stock ; neither do they sufficiently agree wnth Dr. 
Leach’s descriptions of Lophjrus Americanm^ Ahhotii^ corn- 
par^ &c.; and therefore I propose to name this apparently 
undescribed species Lopliyrus Ahietis^ the Lophyrus of the 
fir-tree. 
The following is a description of the insect in its winged 
state. The two sexes differ very much from each other 
in size and color, and still more remarkably in the form 
of their antennas. The male (Plate VIII. Fig. 3) is the 
smallest, measures one quarter of an inch in length, and 
expands his wings about two fifths of an inch. His body 
is black above, and brown beneath; his wings are trans¬ 
parent, with changeable tints of rose-red, green, and yel¬ 
low ; and his legs are wholly of a dirty leather-yellow color. 
His antennas (Plate VHI. Fig. 4, magnified) resemble very 
short, black feathers, wide at the end, and narrowed to a 
point, and are curled inwards on each edge, so as to appear 
hollow. The genus Lophyrus derives its name fi’om the 
plume-like crest on the heads of the male insects. The 
body of the female (Plate VHI. Fig. 5) is about three 
tenths of an inch long, and her wings expand half an inch 
or more. She is of a yellowish-brown color above, with 
a short blackish stripe on each side of the middle of the 
* Treatise, pp. 340 and 347. 
