THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 226 



2. About the same date I also found upon a maple another female, 

 which may be only a variety of those just mentioned, or, possibly, a dis- 

 tinct species. The antennae are dark ; the head has two scarcely per- 

 ceptible white dots ; the legs are much yellower, and only four of the 

 abdominal segments are marked with white, the dots being very small. It 

 may be mellipes of Harris, which he describes as differing chiefly from 

 albicornis in having " only four white spots on each side of the abdomen," 

 Length as given by Dr. Harris, four-tenths of an inch ; of my specimen 

 five-eighths of an inch. 



•o* 



3. In looking over my summer collections a few days ago, I dis- 

 covered an insect which is evidently a male of one of the preceding 

 insects. Unfortunately it had been hastily pinned without labelling, so 

 that I cannot give the place of capture or the precise date, which, how- 

 ever, must have been in June or July. It is small, being barely three- 

 eighths of an inch long ; head of a clouded yellowish-white color, with a 

 dark brownish stripe on the vertex ; antennae dark ; thorax chiefly white 

 beneath, and with two V-shaped whitish marks above ; wings small ; 

 abdomen long and very thin. 



4. Tremex Columbia Say is very destructive here to old beech and 

 maple trees, especially such as are isolated and growing along road sides, 

 or have received gashes or injuries of the bark. The Rev. V. dementi 

 has recorded (vol. i, page 29) the issue of specimens from oak firewood 

 which had been placed near a warm stove. The date of the occurrence 

 is not given, but as the number containing the account was published on 

 1 6th Nov., it probably occurred a month earUer. Dr. Packard (Bulletin 

 No. 7, " Insects Injurious to Shade and Forest Trees ") infers from this 

 thai the insects mature in the autumn and hibernate as imagines. I can 

 find no mention of them emerging (under natural conditions) late in the 

 season, although they must often do so, as shown by the following 

 instances. On the 9th of Oct., 1880, I found one ovipositing in an old 

 beech. Knowing that the tree had for some time been much infested by 

 these borers, I made a careful examination of it, and soon saw the man- 

 dibles and a portion of the head of some insect which was gnawing its 

 way through the bark. This operation I hastened with the aid of a 

 pocket-knife, and found that it was another large female Last month 

 (Oct.) I kept a careful watch for these insects, to ascertain, if possible, 

 whether their appearance at such a late date had been an exceptional 



