OF WASHINGTON. Ill 



ing its way out just opposite the entrance hole. Most infested 

 roots measure from 4 to 6 mm. in thickness. In this narrow 

 space it is impossible for the beetle to make the circular gal 

 lery as nearly in the same plane as in the thicker Sugar Maple 

 saplings, and the gallery is constructed in a more descending 

 or ascending way along the axis of the root. It thus resem 

 bles usually the windings of a corkscrew, and is sometimes 

 quite steep. The arrangement of the short vertical galleries 

 or cradles in the Huckleberry is much less regular than in the 

 Sugar Maple ; the whole interior of the infested portion of the 

 root appears to be honeycombed with them. A second or 

 third story of galleries occur also in Huckleberries, but not 

 often, and they are usually much less plain than in Dr. Mer- 

 riam's figures. Since the Huckleberry roots are rarely verti 

 cal, but either more or less arched or crooked in various ways 

 or horizontal for a long distance, and since the burrows of the 

 beetle may occur in any part of the root (except in the thin 

 ner tip), from near to the surface of the soil to five or six 

 inches beneath it, the galleries are directed sometimes upward, 

 sometimes downward, and sometimes they are horizontal, but 

 usually they run from the entrance hole in the direction of the 

 tip of the root. 



A novel feature in the knowledge of our Scolytid burrows is 

 exhibited in a long, straight gallery through the core of the 

 root, beginning at the top of the honeycombed portion and 

 extending always upward, sometimes even above the surface 

 of the soil. This gallery is never coated with the black sub 

 stance seen in the regular galleries, and in it from three to 

 six or even more beetles, one close behind the other, are met 

 with. I have called it the hibernating gallery, for it is evi 

 dent that it is made (of course only by the foremost beetle, 

 the others can only help by pushing the sawdust behind them 

 selves) solely for the purpose of having dry winter quarters 

 remote from the regular galleries, where the wood becomes 

 rotten and damp. This hibernating gallery occurs, however, 

 not in all infested roots. 



In the course of my observations I examined the roots and 

 subterranean stems of all sorts of plants growing among the 

 huckleberry bushes but without finding hitherto any other 

 food-plant. The beetle appears to live only in the common 

 Huckleberry of our markets, Gaylussacia resinosa, and I failed 

 to find it even in two allied species, Vaccinium stamineum and 

 V. corymbosum. It occurs, however, by no means wherever 

 the Gaylussacia grows, but there are here and there infested 

 areas of plants of larger or smaller extent, more especially in 

 shady places, where the plants grow on a deca) T ed log or 



