146 Bulletin 234. 



motions, over the bark upon some cut poplars piled by the wayside " in the Adiron- 

 dack region of New York. He suggested that the larva was probably a borer in 

 poplar (37th Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Mus. Nat. Hist. p. 50; the same account occurs 

 in Lintncr's 5th Rept. p. 281). In 1884, Harrington took specimens of the beetles 

 on willows in Quebec (Can. Ent., Vol. XVI, p. loi), and in 1889, Blanchard recorded 

 it as occurring on the foliage of poplar sprouts in Massachusetts, and he took a few 

 specimens on the summit of Mt. Washington, N. Hamp., " Whitlier they had flown 

 from below" (Ent. Am., Vol. V, p. 32). 



The first notice of this borer attacking birch appears to be that of Schwarz who 

 mentioned the insect in 1890, in connection with the work of a Scolytid beetle, 

 Xylotcnts roUtus (Proc. Ent. Soc, Wash., Vol. II, p. 78) at Detroit, Mich., where 

 two silver birches were killed. The same year Cook (3rd Ann. Rept. Mich. Expt. 

 Sta., p. 119), bred the insect from galls which were quite common in Michigan on 

 a willow {Scilix discolor). Davis describes these galls (Insect Life, IV, p. 66) as an 

 oval swelling of the live branch in which the borer tunnels " an oval gallery down- 

 ward from the gall, sometimes in the pith, but oftener indiscriminately through the 

 wood, and makes its exit often an inch and a half below." This work in willow is 

 so different from that of Agrilus anxius in birch, that I was inclined to doubt the 

 identity of the two borers, but an examination of one of Cook's specimens con- 

 vinced me that they are probably the same insect, and Mr. E. A. Schwarz confirms 

 this. As the specimen was a female, it was impossible to determine it definitely. 



In 1896, Jack reported (Garden and Forest for 1896, p. 269),' that "some of the 

 foreign birches in the Arboretum and other localities about Boston have been killed 

 by the attacks of boring larvae " which were doubtless this Bronze Birch Borer. 

 About the same time the white birches in the parks of Buffalo began to die from 

 the attacks of this pest, and during the past six years the insect has killed hundreds 

 of these beautiful trees in Buffalo, Rochester, Hornellsville, Ithaca and doubtless 

 other cities in New York ; and similar destructive work is reported from Detroit 

 and Ann Arbor in Michigan, from Chicago, and from Guclph, London and Hamilton 

 in Canada. It is still continuing its ravages in some of these cities, slowly spread- 

 ing from tree to tree, as practically no well directed effort is being made to check it. 



A good summary of previous records of the insect and an account of its work 

 in Buffalo was given by Chittenden in 1898 and 1900 (Bull. No. 18, new series, U. S. 

 Div. of Entomology, p. 44-51, and Bull. 22 of the same Division, p. 64-65). In a 

 paper on "A Disease of the WMiite Birch " read in March, 1901, before the Michigan 

 Academy of Science (3rd Rept. of Mich. Acad. Sci. 1902, p. 46-49) John Larsen gave 

 an excellent account of many original observations on the work and habits of tliis 

 insect. Professor Lochhead well summarized the records in 1903 (28th Ann. Rep. 

 Ontario Agr. Coll. & Exp. Farm for 1902, p. 22-23). 



The Dlstributiox and Destructivexess of the Ixsect 

 The bronze birch borer is an American insect and is widely dis- 

 tributed throughout the northern United States and Canada. It has been 

 recorded from New Hampshire and Alassachusetts westward through 

 Connecticut, Xew Jersey. Xew York, Pennsylvania, ^'irginia. Quebec 

 and Ontario in Canada, Michigan and Illinois to Colorado. Thus far 

 it has been reported as injurious only in ATassachusetts, New York, 

 Michigan. Illinois and Ontario in Canada. But doubtless many white 

 birches in other States have been killed by the insect, the real cause 

 being unknown or unrecorded. 



