. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture. BULLETIN OF THE No. Ill Contribution from the Bureau of Entomology, L. O. Howard, Chief July II, 1914. (PROFESSIONAL PAPER.). THE SEQUOIA PITCH MOTH, A MENACE TO PINE IN WESTERN MONTANA. By Josef Brunner, Agent and Expert, Forest Insect Investigations. INTRODUCTION. In the area near and at the divide between Swan River and Clear- water River in Montana and extencUng, so far as known at present, about 8 miles southeast from that divide, the sequoia pitch moth (Vespamima sequoia Hy. Edw.)^ is at present the most destructive insect. I
. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture. BULLETIN OF THE No. Ill Contribution from the Bureau of Entomology, L. O. Howard, Chief July II, 1914. (PROFESSIONAL PAPER.). THE SEQUOIA PITCH MOTH, A MENACE TO PINE IN WESTERN MONTANA. By Josef Brunner, Agent and Expert, Forest Insect Investigations. INTRODUCTION. In the area near and at the divide between Swan River and Clear- water River in Montana and extencUng, so far as known at present, about 8 miles southeast from that divide, the sequoia pitch moth (Vespamima sequoia Hy. Edw.)^ is at present the most destructive insect. It menaces the lodgepole pine timber, in which it propagates, and all other trees in the vicinity of those attacked are jeopardized by the forest fires fed by the dead timber resulting from the work of its larvae. The range of its peculiar injury to trees in that region has also been traced by the writer about 6 miles west from the wagon road which unites the Clearwater and the Swan River country from Rainy Lake toward the Mission Range. Roughly, the area in which the insect is a very serious factor in forest destruction is about 12 miles long by as many miles wide and covers about 144 sections of forest land, or more than 90,000 acres. Control and practical elimination of this insect, as a serious menace to the very existence of the forest growth of this area, depends largely on a knowledge of its habits and life history. Insufficient familiarity with these two points would result in unnecessary waste of time in locating infested trees and in conducting control operations at a time of the year when the result would be out of proportion to the cost. DESCRIPTION OF THE INSECT. Vespamima sequoia (fig. 1) is a clear-winged moth in general appear- ance strongly resembUng a hornet or "yellow ; Tins resem- blance is so perfect that a truck gardener near Missoula, Mont., evi- 1 Identiflcation by August Busck, as the species which was first found to iiiliabit the sequoi
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