2Q8 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [July, '9 



Notes on Wood-Boring Coleoptera. 

 C. A. FROST, South Framingham. Mass. 



In the April numher of the NEWS, p. 188, I noticed a brief 

 reference to the penetrating powers of some species of Scoly- 

 ticlae which when pursued bored "into the heart of the tree so 

 rapidly as to almost defy capture." This brought to mind 

 some notes made several years ago from observations on an- 

 other family of similar habits. I had found a species of Had- 

 robreginus, probably carinatns, boring into sticks of stove- 

 wood which were seasoning in the yard. The wood was 

 neither very green nor well seasoned, and, I think, had been 

 cut the previous winter. It was attacked on the split surfaces 

 where they were uppermost. 



As the rate of progress into the wood seemed rather slow, 

 I selected a stick of white maple, one of hornbeam, and one of 

 beech, on each of which a beetle was working, and laid them 

 aside for observation at 3 P. M. (June 2Oth). At 7 P. M. no 

 perceptible advance could be detected, all being sunk in the 

 wood to the hind coxae. At 7 A. M. the next morning the 

 one -in the maple stick was in its entire length, while the one 

 in the beech had the last segment of the abdomen protrud- 

 ing; the one in the hornbeam was not working. On June 22, 

 at the end of forty-three hours, the one in the maple stick had 

 bored into the wood one mm. more than the length of its 

 body. Allowing for an extremely long specimen of this species 

 the rate of progress for the forty-three hours was three and 

 one-half mm. The one in the beech stick was in the exact 

 length of its body, or five mm. The one in the hornbeam was 

 dead. No post mortem examination was made but I have con- 

 cluded that it died of exhaustion or disgust at the tough prop- 

 osition that confronted it. 



While the insect is at work the body is swung from side to 

 side in a partial rotation and the cuttings come up in small 

 lunate segments which are pushed back by the hind legs. At 

 intervals the beetle backs partly out and pushes away the ac- 

 cumulated debris with the posterior tarsi. 



