EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



593 



the work of the apple-twig borer or grape-cane borer (Amphicerus 

 hicaudatus). On opening one of these burrows, it is sometimes possible 

 to find the culprit, a slender, cylindrical beetle of dull brownish color 

 (Fig. 21). The insects are always in the adult state when thus found, 

 for their earlier stages are passed in quite different quarters. The dam- 

 age done by these tunnelings is sometimes very serious, though what 

 object the beetle can have in thus boring into the healthy growth is still 

 a question; it is doubtless partly to obtain food. According to Mr. Mar- 

 latt,* the insect breeds in decaying and diseased wood and in old canes 

 and primings. It also breeds in briers, producing one brood a year. 

 Mr. Marlatt recommends the removal and destruction by fire of all 

 prunings and decaying wood from the vicinity of the vineyard before 

 midsummer. It would be well, also, to remove all briers from the 

 vicinity. When the insects once get a start, nothing seems to stop them 

 except hand-pruning of all infested shoots. 



CHERRY-LEAF BEETLE. 



[Galerucella cavicollis Lee.) 

 The red cherry-leaf beetle (Fig. 23) (Galerucella cavicollis) furnishes 



Fig. 23. Cherry-leaf Beetle (Ctalerucella cavicollis). (Original.) 



an excellent example of the change of habit or of food-plant sometimes 

 adopted by insects. Up to a few years ago the species in question was 

 believed to feed exclusively on wild cherry, with the exception of having 

 been found once or twice on buttercup and chestnut, but quite recently 

 it has taken a liking to our cultivated cherry-trees, and on account of 

 this change of taste has become a troublesome and destructive pest. 



In the Report of the Michigan Board of Agriculture for 1894, Mr. G. C. 

 Davis mentions it as having been destructive to cherry-trees at Bellaire, 

 Mich. It has lately become destructive in New York, and may soon be 

 one of the regular enemies of the cherry. 



The insect is thought to be one-brooded, and the beetles, which become 

 troublesome in May and June, are probably those that have hibernated 



♦Year Book Dep't of Ag. for 1895, p. 391. 

 75 



