392 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



nearly healthy beech {Fagus ferruginea} . The tree had been 

 slightly injured, evidently by a brush fire, but sufficiently to loosen 

 the bark and cause it to peel ofF, leaving about eight or ten feet of the 

 trunk exposed. The beetles had bored into the wood in the same 

 manner as previously mentioned, their burrows being distributed 

 all over the exposed surface. . This colony was also accompanied 

 by Clavicorns, including many individuals of Sacium fasciatum 

 and a few other species, probably attracted by the sap oozing 

 from the burrows made by the Monarthrum. 



I have also seen this species attacking a newly felled oak. 

 Their burrows, which were quite numerous and for the most 

 part on the upper side of the log, had, at the time of this obser 

 vation, penetrated to a considerable distance. Quite a number of 

 the beetles were abroad, and a few were watched as they flew and 

 crawled about the log. Apparently they were only in search of 

 the entrance to a burrow, which found they quickly disappeared. 

 These were apparently already inhabited. The new arrivals made 

 no attempt to form fresh burrows of their own. 



In common with many others, these Scolytids appear abroad 

 during the first sultry days of spring. The past year they were 

 seen about Washington flying toward dusk early in May. 



In the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1880 (pp. 274, 

 275) Prof. J. H. Comstock cites an instance of damage to wine- 

 casks by this species in Arkansas. This and the two single-line 

 notices of food-plants furnished by me for the Fifth Report of 

 the U. S. Entomological Commission (pp. 328, 520) comprise 

 the sum total of all the published information I am able to find 

 on the subject. The latter note is not credited. 



Monarthrum mali Fitch. Late in May I discovered, on the 

 Virginia side of the Potomac, near Washington, a small colony of 

 this species boring in a stump of box-elder (Negundo accroidcs = 

 Acer negundd). The greater part of the wood was dead and dry, 

 and it was only in the moist portion that the beetles were found. 

 This portion appeared to be still living, the bark adhering firmly. 

 The beetles had penetrated the bark and were boring in a straight 

 line into the sap-wood after the manner of the preceding species. 

 I have also specimens bred from oak fire-wood at Orange, N. J.. 

 June 6th, the lateness of their appearance being doubtless due to 

 the wood having been kept for a long time under cover, deprived 

 of both sunlight and moisture. This species has also been found 

 on oak by Mr. Schwarz, who gave a short description of its gal 

 leries in an early number of the Proceedings (vol. i, p. 48). 



A summary of the known food-plants of our four North 

 American species of Monarthrum would be as follows : 



M. fasciatum Say Hicoria ovata, Fagus, Qucrciis. 



M. scutellare Lee. ^jiercus agrifolia (J. J. Rivers Bull. 

 Cal. Ac. Sci., n, p. 66). 



