STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 419 



CURRANT. STALKS. 



in a particular stalk than can be accommodated in the pith. In 

 this case some of them resort to the soft outermost layers of the 

 wood immediately beneath the bark, where broad shallow burj-ows 

 stuffed with the castings of the worm will be met with, occasion- 

 ally with the worm lying in them. I have in one instance found 

 twelve worms in the different parts of a single stalk. 



When the w^orm has completed its growth and is about to leave 

 off feeding it gnaws a small orifice out to the bark through the 

 wooden wall by which it is surrounded, in order that when it has 

 changed to a beetle it can make its exit from its prison by merely 

 rupturing the bark. The hole thus made is then stuffed full of 

 little chips to protect the bark from being prematurely broken. 

 It then withdraws itself down the stalk slightly below this hole, 

 and constructs a bed on which to repose during the long period 

 of inactivity that now^ follows. This bed is formed of short 

 w^oody fibres wadded together and filling the cavity fur the 

 length of about half an inch. A similar mass is commonly 

 placed above the worm also, formed mostly of finer materials like 

 sawdust intermingled with brown and white grains, the castings 

 of the worms. The space between these two partitions is about 

 half an inch in length and forms the chamber in which the worm 

 reposes until it changes to a beetle. In the Entomological Museum 

 at the Agricultural Rooms is a currant stalk showing the burrow 

 of this insect, with one of the worms lying in its cell, having a 

 slip of transparent mica cemented over it, and also showing 

 slightly above it the orifice which this worm had cut through the 

 v.'ood w^hereby to make its exit. 



It is about the first of June that the parent insect deposits her 

 eggs upon the currant stalks, and the worms get their growth by 

 the close of the sea«>on. They repose in their cells through the 

 winter, changing to pupse with the warmth of the following 

 spring, and begin to appear abroad in their perfect state as early 

 as the middle of May, the sexes pairing immediately after they 

 come out. 



Althougli the larvre of this insect are now found in such abun- 

 dance in the stalks of the cultivated currant in our gardens, before 

 this shrub was introduced u[ioii this continent it doubtless sus- 

 tained itself upon the wild currant. And it probably is not limit- 



