THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



SAPERDA FAYI, S. CONCOLOR AND APHODIUS RUFIPES. 



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



Saperda Fayi, Bland. — This beautiful Saperda breeds in the small 

 limbs of Crataegus, especially crus-galli and tomentosa, as first observed 

 by Mr. C. D. Zimmermann, Can. Ent., io, 220 ; and should it, like some 

 of its allies, acquire a taste for cultivated fruit trees, it would be a formid- 

 able enemy, as is evidenced by the way it depredates on thorn bushes. 

 The beetles appear here the last week in May or the first week in June, 

 according to the season, the males preceding the females three or four 

 days. They do not appear to eat and are short lived, the whole brood 

 (except stragglers) appearing and disappearing within the space of ten or 

 twelve days, so that should the collector be negligent, or the weather un- 

 suitable for collecting at the time of their appearance, he may get none 

 till the next season. As soon as the females appear the males are ready 

 to associate with them, the union lasting three or four hours. They are 

 not much given to flying about, usually ovipositing on the same tree they 

 inhabited as larvae. There may be several thorn trees not far apart, and 

 one will be depredated on year after year till it is nearly destroyed, while 

 the others will remain untouched till colonized apparently by accident. 

 The beetles are sluggish, and when approached suddenly fall to the ground 

 and quickly endeavor to conceal themselves, not feigning death, as many 

 insects under the same circumstances do ; and when I say feigning death, 

 I mean it literally, in opposition to an unsupported dogmatic statement 

 which I lately saw in print somewhere, " that insects can have no 

 knowledge of death." 



Oviposition is effected probably during the night, and the process has 

 not been witnessed, nor the eggs seen. The limbs selected for this pur- 

 pose vary from one third to one and one fourth inches in diameter, and 

 according to the thickness of the limb, the female with her powerful man- 

 dibles makes from three to six longitudinal incisions through the bark 

 each about three fourths of an inch long and equi-distant and parallel to 

 one another, dividing the circumference into sections nearly equal ; an egg 

 is placed in each end of each of these slits, and as soon as hatched the 

 larva makes a burrow beneath the outer layer of wood, . perhaps one 

 eighth inch in length at first, and uses this as a retreat whence it issues to 

 feed on the diseased wood caused by the incision. These slits and the 



