326 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW- YORK 



APPLE. TRUNK. 



4. Prickly Leptosttlus, Leptostylus aculiferus, Say. (Coleoptera. Ceram- 

 bycidae.) [Plate I, fig. 4.] 



Small worms, similar in appearance to young apple tree borers, 

 occurring sometimes in multitudes under the bark, forming long, 

 narrow winding tracks upon the outer surface of the wood, these 

 tracks becoming broader as the worm has increased in size. 



A rather short and thick brownish gray beetle, with small 

 prickle-like points upon its wing covers, and back of their middle 

 a white curved or V-shaped band, with a black streak on its hind 

 edge. Length, 0.35. Appearing the last of August. See Country 

 Gentleman, vol. ix, p. 78. 



The wood of the apple tree was formerly highly valued for cabinet work in 

 this country. In 1786, a son of Gen. Israel Putnam, residing in Williams- 

 town, Mass., had a table made from one of his apple trees. Many years after- 

 wards the gnawing of an insect was heard in one of the leaves of this table, 

 v.-hich noise continued for a year or two. when a large long-horned beetle made 

 its exit therefrom. Subsequently the same noise was heard again, and 

 another insect, and afterwards a third, all of the same kind, issued from this 

 table leaf—the first one coming out twenty and the last one twent)''-eight years 

 after the tree was cut down. These facts are more fully stated in the history 

 of the county of Berkshire, published at Pittsfield, 1829, page 39. This, I 

 believe, is the longest period of an insect remaining alive in timber, of which 

 we have any record, and it is important to ascertain, if possible, what insect 

 this was. John J. Putnam, Esq., of Whitecreek, N. Y., was a young man, resid- 

 ing at his father's in Williamstown, when these remarkable incidents occurred. 

 On showing to him specimens of all the larger long-horned beetles of this 

 vicinity, he points to the Cerasphorus balteatus (plate 1, fig. 8; see insects infes- 

 ting the trunk of the hickory,) as being the same insect, according to the best 

 of his recollection, though he is not certain but it might have been the Calli- 

 dium agreste. This testimony, in connection with what President Fitch of Wil- 

 liams college says of the insect in the notice above referred to, *' its color dark 

 glistening brown with tints of yellow," releases us from all doubts upon this 

 subject, as the agreste is of a uniform brown color, whilst the balteatus com- 

 monly presents traces more or less distinct of an oblique yellowish spot or band 

 near the middle of its wing covers. We may therefore regard the balteatus as 

 another insect which occasionally bores in the trunks of the apple tree. 



5. Apple bark beetle, Tomicus Mali, new sp. (Coleoptera. Scolytidae.) 



Young thrifty trees, soon after putting forth their leaves in 

 spring, suddenly withering, as though scorched by fire, the bark 

 becoming loosened from the wood, and soon after numerous per- 



