STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 207 



ricncc with it, says that all plants infested by it die. It appears, therefore, 

 to be the chief enemy of this plant, and beyond the reach of any direct 

 remedy ; hence the only feasible means of counteracting it which has 

 been recommended, is to destroy the old bed and plant a new one. In 

 order to make this effectual the plants must be taken up soon after they 

 are done bearing — June or July — and completely destroyed, in order to 

 kill the larvae, which may be killed. 



Spec. Char. Imago, Riley. — Color deep chestnut brown, somewhat polished; the 

 elytra somewhat lighter. Head and snout dark and densely punctured, and covered 

 wiih short, coarse, yellowish hairs. Antenna? ten-jointed, rather lighter toward the base ; 

 second joint longest ; clubbed at the tip. Thorax dark, cylindrical, slightly swollen at 

 the middle, uniformly punctured, with a few short, coarse, yellowish hairs. Elytra yel- 

 lowish brown, broader than the thorax, rounded at the shoulders, and roundly tapering 

 jiosteriorly ; each wing-case with about nine deeply punctured striic, though the grooves 

 themselves are sometimes indistinct or obsolete ; more or less covered with coarse, short 

 hairs, which form by their greater density three bands, as before stated ; on each case, 

 between the second and third band, is a smooth, dark brown or black spot, and behind 

 this sometimes another, smaller and less distinct. Length one-sixth of an inch; width 

 about one-half the length. 



Family SCOLYTID.E. (Short-horned Wood -borers.) 



For the family characters the reader is referred to Dr. LeBaron's 

 Fourth Report. 



Scolytus 4-spinosus, Say. {S. carycB, Riley). The Hickory-bark Borer. 



This is short, oblong and nearly cylindrical in form. The antennae 

 very short and terminated with a club ; the thorax is quadrate in form 

 and very large, almost equal in size to the part of the body behind it. 

 Length one-fifth of an inch, or little less. Color either entirely black, or 

 black with brown wing-cases. 



The female beetle, selecting the trunk or larger limb of a hickory tree, 

 bores through the bark and forms a vertical chamber next to the wood, 

 from half an inch to an inch in length, on each side of which she deposits 

 her eggs, varying in number from twenty to fifty. The larvae when 

 hatched feed on the" inner bark, each one forming a track of its own, 

 thus forming the radiating burrows so common on the under side of the 

 bark of hickory trees. 



The larva is a soft, yellowish, footless grul), much like the larvae of 

 some of the curculios, and from which it can not easily be distinguished, 

 except by its habits; it is very small, not exceeding the fifth of an inch 

 in length when fully grown. 



The eggs are deposited during the months of August and September, 

 and the beetle issues about the latter part of June or first of July. It 

 attacks the bitter-nut, shell-bark, and pig-nut hickories, and probably the 

 pecan. 



No practical remedy is known, nor is there much probability of any 

 extensive experiments being made until forest timber becomes more valued 

 than it is now. 



