242 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



Morrello sprouts, I have therefore concluded that the Mahaleb is 

 :the only satisfactory stock. 



NEW AND OLD INSECTS. 



BY PEOF. S. A. FORBES, CHAMPAIGN. 



The American Plum Borer. — Euzoph era semifuneralis , Walk. 

 — (Stenopty cha pdllulella, Hulst.) — Order, Lepidoptera. — Fam- 



ily Pyralidce. 



Although various boring insects have occasionally attacked the 

 plum these have been species whose principal injuries are done 

 to other trees, and no distinctive plum borer has hitherto been 

 known in this country. Among these incidental enemies are the 

 peach borer {San nina exitiosa), the flat-headed apple tree borer 

 \Chrysobothris femorata) , the so-called pear-blight beetle {Xyle- 

 boru pyri) and one of the twig borers {Ela phidion parallelum). 

 Somewhat recently a newly imported European bark beetle 

 {Scolytus rugulosus) has attacked a variety of fruit trees, the 

 •plum among them; but by none of these insects has any constant 

 and serious injury been done in Illinois, so far as I am now aware. 

 In a species first described (in this country) in 1887, and whose 

 immature stages have remained unknown until the present time, 

 we have our first example of a borer devoted, so far as we know, 

 rto the plum alone. This species was first reported to me as an 

 injurious insect Aug. 31, 1887, in a letter from Mr. Buckman, 

 Farmingdale, Sangamon county, Illinois, accompanied by a few 

 borers found in young Chinese plum trees {Primus Simonii) , one 

 of which was already nearly killed by them. The attack was de- 

 scribed as most general near the forks of the tree, especially at 

 the bases of the lower limbs, but the larvre were sometimes found 

 an inch or less within the earth. The smaller ones were near the 

 surface of the bark, sometimes just under the thin outer film, but 

 others were next the wood. As many as fifty were taken from a 

 single tree, the bark here being killed in large irregular patches. 



By the following year it was evident that this was, a very de- 

 structive species, several trees having been destroyed by it. 

 These were mostly, however, the Chinese plum already mentioned, 

 and eastern varieties, Lombard, Gage and Hulling's Superb; but 

 the Weaver plum, a Western variety, was also injured. Living 

 borers received from Mr. Buckman Nov. 3 were about half an 

 inch in length, of a greenish dusky color, with only a few scattered 

 stiff hairs springing from small dark specks. The head was reddish 

 brown, witn a darker triangular patch in the middle, and the top 

 of the segment behind the head — the cervical shield, so called — 

 varied from yellowish to pitchy, more or less shaded with brown, 

 but with a median yellow patch. This borer has, of course, the 



