STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 417 



CURRANT. STALKS. 



glioots every year, whereby the places of those that perish are 

 constantly re-supplied. 



After the leaves have fallen in autumn and during the winter 

 these dead stalks are readily distinguished from the live ones by 

 being dotted over with a pretty little fungus the size of a pin 

 head and of a pale bright red color and a corky texture, which I 

 suppose to be the Sphceria Rihesia of Fries. Another fungus also 

 appears on the small twigs, very similar to this but having its 

 surface flattened and of a coal black color. 



If one of these currant stalks is split asunder the cause of its 

 death is plainly evident. Commonly through the wiiole length of 

 the stalk the pith is found to have been eaten away by a worm, 

 leaving it hollow or filled in places with a loose woody powder, 

 like fine sawdust. Each of the branches is also found to be bored 

 in the same manner. And lying in this cavity, one, two or more 

 of the worms which have done this mischief are met with, in all 

 the stalks which have recently been destroyed. 



The only insect to which this injury has heretofore been impu- 

 ted in this country is a kind of moth closely related to the Peach 

 tree borer, which perforates the currant stalks in Europe in this 

 same manner and has been brought to this country with tlie cur- 

 rant. But the past winter, on coming to inspect these worms, 

 finding they were wholly destitute of feet, I became assured they 

 were a different insect from that which they have all along been 

 supposed to be. And on rearing some of them to their perfect 

 form, I obtained in place of the European currant borer, a beetle, 

 one of the native insects of this country whose history has hith- 

 erto been unknown, and which is nearly related to the Apple tree 

 borer. 



This insect is the Clytus supenwtat us of Mr. Say (J<nu'. Acad. Nat. 

 Sci. ili,425) and of Prof. ITaklcman, (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. x,42) 

 and the Psenocerus Pini of Dr. Leconte (Juur. Acad. 2d series, ii, 

 581) and of the Catalogue uf Coleoptera lately })ublishod by the 

 Smithsonian Institutiijn. It would be an incongruity much to be 

 regretted in the scientific names of the insects of our country, if this 

 species which subsists ui)on the currant had received a name indi- 

 cating it to belong to the pine. But fortunately this is not the 



case. The Caliidium Pini of Olivier, wliieh Dr. Leconte supposes 



Aa 



