THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 189 



theories based upon such slender foundations that they fail to reach the 

 dignity of assured facts. This, I think, may be said of much that has 

 been written concerning the habits of this beetle. The record which I 

 have thought proper to make relates to veritable facts, but whether in the 

 particular instance referred to they are to be regarded as extraordinary 

 and not of common occurrence, may be a problem yet to be solved. I 

 trust that in offering this paper I may not be thought presumptuous in 

 differing with so distinguished Entomologists as Drs. Harris and Fitch, yet 

 as my observations do not bear out the conclusions which they have 

 reached, and a^Dprehending that the best interests of the science are served 

 by that record or enquiry which relates to the discovery of facts, I make 

 no apology to these fathers in the science for transcribing in relation to 

 this subject views somewhat dissimilar to theirs. 



Dr. Harris says that if a burrow be split open in winter, it will be 

 found to contain the larva, which in the spring assumes the pupa form, and 

 in June or July is changed into a beetle. He is in accord with Dr. Fitch 

 concerning the periods of transformation, and holds similar views with 

 him as to the habit of pruning. Dr. Fitch, I think, unduly exalts the 

 instincts of these beetles as illustrated in their larval habit of pruning the 

 twigs and branches of the oak, contending, as he does, that the twig or 

 branch is eaten away by the young larva for a small space, and left supported 

 only by the bark that the autumn winds may fell it to the ground, and that 

 the environment of its new condition is necessary to the transformation 

 of the included larva. This is substantially what each writer has to say 

 upon the subject, though Dr. Fitch's report is very lengthened and rather 

 extravagant in imaginative conclusions. 



These oak pruners were very abundant in Columbia County, this State, 

 in the season of 1878. The September winds brought showers of twigs 

 and branches to the ground. I examined many of them, and found each 

 to contain the larva, nearly full grown, in tunnels measuring from ten to 

 fifteen inches long. I gathered five goodly sized branches just after they 

 had fallen for the purpose of illustrating the burrows in my cabinet of 

 nest architecture. The branches remained on a table in a room having 

 very nearly the condition, thermometrically, of the temperature without, 

 until the early part of November, when I opened them for the purposes 

 already stated. I was astonished to find that every burrow contained the 

 beetle ; the transformation, therefore, from the larva to the imago was 

 completed in less than eight weeks— how much less I know not — and 



