Article I.— Studies of the Life History, Habits, and Taxo- 

 nomic Relations of a New Species of Oberea (Oberea ulmicola 

 Chittenden). By F. M. Webster. 



The species of this genus of Cerambijcidw are not easy to 

 define, on account of their variability in color, and they have 

 for this reason been the subject of repeated and radical revision 

 by entomologists. In 1878, Dr. G. H. Horn, in his revision of the 

 genus* restricted the number of species to eleven, while Mr. Chas. 

 W. Leng, eighteen years later, reduced this number to five. In 

 this latter revision Oberea tripunetata Swederus was divided in- 

 to two groups, or forms as they are there called, the bimaculata 

 form and the tripunetata form, the species itself being thus 

 burdened with no less than eleven synonyms. Even this ar- 

 rangement is unsatisfactory, and considerable evidence has ac- 

 cumulated tendingto show that we may have species the adults 

 of which are difficult to separate, whose larvae are restricted to 

 very different food plants. Thus Oberea bimaculata has hitherto 

 been reared exclusively from plants belonging to the genus 

 Rubus, while 0. tripunetata breeds in a variety of food plants 

 other than Rubus, and including the elm. It is therefore inter- 

 esting to find another apparently valid species which seems re- 

 stricted to the elm, although 0. tripunetata, as at present under- 

 stood, breeds on the same tree with the one under consideration. 



One of its close allies, Oberea texana, is a southern form, 

 while 0. ulmicola has thus far been found only in a single city 

 of about 20,000 inhabitants in central Illinois. Even there it 

 does not infest the elms of the entire city, but has confined it- 

 self to a certain section, within which it is so excessively abun- 

 dant that the females are compelled to deposit their eggs in the 

 same twigs again and again, notwithstanding the fact that only 



*Trans. Am. Ent. Soc, Vol. VII., pp. 45-48. 

 \Loc.cit., Vol. XXIII., pp. 153-157. 



