Clje Caimbian Entomologist. 



VOL. XIX. LONDON, AUGUST, 1887. No. 8 



ELAPHIDION VILLOSUM, Fab. 



BY JOHN HAMILTON, M. U., ALLEGHENY, PA. 



The account of this insect given by the early fathers of (liconomic 

 Entomology is so charming that it seems almost profane to disturb a his- 

 tory accepted by most of their credulous offspring with unquestioning 

 faith. Its wonderful habits and supra-rational instincts have been stock 

 in trade ever since, and, like the fiction of the fly walking on glass by a 

 sucker arrangement of its feet, is likely to hold its place in paste and 

 scissor literature for all time to come. 



Divested of all romance and imagination, and descending to facts, the 

 observations of Professor Peck, Fitch and Harris may be reduced to this. 

 In the month of July the parent lays the eggs on the limbs, or in the axil 

 of a leaf near the end of the twigs of that year's growth of various species 

 of oak, and perhaps other trees. After hatching, the young larva (in the- 

 latter case) penetrates to the pith and devours it downwards till the woody 

 base is reached, and so onward to the centre of the main limb ; here it 

 eats away a considerable portion of the inside of the limb, and then 

 plugging the end of the burrow, which it excavates towards the distal end, 

 eventually falls to the ground with the limb, which being weakened, is 

 broken off by the high autumnal winds. They exist here either as larvae 

 or pupaj till spring, and emerge in June as perfect beetles. Time, one 

 year, though not so stated in words. 



The account given in detail below is so different from the above, that 

 were the identity of the individuals not "-established by actual comparison 

 and by recognized authority, it might well be asserted I had given an 

 account of some other Elaphidion. 



April, 1883, I procured a barrel of hickory limbs from a tree girdled 

 early in 1882 ; the limbs were from one-half to one inch in diameter. 

 Very few things developed from them that season : but the next (1884) 

 quite a number of species came forth — Clytanthus ruricola and albo- 

 fasciatus^ Neoclytus iuscus and ei-ythrocephalus^ Stenosphenus Jiotatjis, etc. 



