THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 225 



Thus far this most injurious insect has only been found in certain portions 

 of this country, being very abundant in the Niagara district, and in the 

 neighbourhood of Montreal and Quebec, but happily rare, or entirely 

 absent, from almost all other parts. 



7. Monohamfnus confiisor Kirby.^A Pine tree Borer. — This fine 

 beetle, which is especially remarkable for the extraordinary length of its 

 antenna, is, in our Pine regions, one of the most common and destructive 

 of our insect enemies. Its general colour is an ashen grey, mottled with 

 variable darker spots ; the scutellum is white ; there are also patches of 

 whitish colour on the head, thorax and abdomen. These variations of 

 colour, being due to a covering of very fine short hairs, which oftentimes 

 are rubbed off, are not to be depended upon in the determination of the 

 species. As in M. saitellatus (fig. 1), each side of the thorax is armed 

 with a short thick spine. The length of the insect varies from three- 

 quarters of an inch to an inch and a half — the average size being over an 

 inch ; the antennae of the males vary in length from one and a half to 

 three inches ; those of the female are somewhat shorter. The larva is a 

 large, white, somewhat cylindrical grub, destitute of feet. During the 

 summer the female lays her eggs in crevices of the bark of the white and 

 red pine, selecting for the most part timber that has been scorched by 

 fire, or felled by the wind or the lumberman's axe ; the larva when hatched 

 soon eats its way into the wood, and before this period of its existence is 

 closed it often burrows immense galleries through and through the solid 

 interior. As it lives a long time in the larval state, the perfect insect is 

 frequently only developed after the timber has been built into a house, and 

 then suddenly emerges from its concealment to the great consternation 

 of the inhabitants of the dwelling. The larva, when burrowing in the 

 wood, makes a lo;id noise like the boring of an auger, which on a still 

 night may be heard for a considerable distance. The species is very gen- 

 erally distributed throughout Canada and the Northern States ; in the 

 pine-growing regions it is often excessively abundant. The late Mr. E. 

 Billings relates that he once saw a pine tree near Lake Clear, in the county 

 of Renfrew, on which he calculated that there were at least three hundred 

 individuals of this species, while numbers more were flying about in all 

 directions. As the insect attacks the cut timber when left over summer 

 in the woods, it is a very serious injury to the operations of the lumber- 

 men of this country. 



