64 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Professor Peck, unites with the two preceding insects in destroy- 

 ing the pines of this country, as above described. But it employs 

 also another mode of attack on the white pine, of which an inter- 

 esting account is given by the late Professor Peck, the first de- 

 scriber of the insect, in the fourth volume of the " Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Repository and Journal," accompanied by figures of 

 the insect. The lofty stature of the white pine, and the straight- 

 ness of its trunk depend, as Professor Peck has remarked, upon 

 the constant health of its leading shoot, for a long succession of 

 years ; and if this shoot be destroyed, the tree becomes stunted 

 and deformed in its subsequent growth. This accident is not un- 

 common, and is caused by the ravages of the white pine wee- 

 vil. This beetle is oblong oval, rather slender, of a brownish 

 color, thickly punctured, and variegated with small brown, rust- 

 colored, and whitish scales. There are two white dots on the 

 thorax ; the scutel is white ; and on the wing-covers, which are 

 punctured in rows, there is a whitish transverse band behind the 

 middle. The snout is longer than the thorax, slender, and a very 

 little inclined. The length of this insect, exclusive of its snout, 

 varies from one fifth to three tenths of an inch. Its eggs are de- 

 posited on the leading shoot of the pine, probably immediately 

 under the outer bark. The larvae, hatched therefrom, bore into the 

 shoot in various directions, and probably remain in the wood more 

 than one year. When the feeding state is passed, but before the 

 insect is changed to a pupa, it gnaws a passage from the inside 

 quite to the bark, which, however, remaining untouched, serves 

 to shelter the little borers from the weather. After they have 

 changed to beetles, they have only to cut away the outer bark to 

 make their escape. They begin to come out early in September, 

 and continue to leave the wood through that month and a part of 

 October. The shoot at this time will be found pierced with 

 small round holes on all sides ; sometimes thirty or forty may be 

 counted on one shoot. Professor Peck has observed that an un- 

 limited increase is not permitted to this destructive insect ; and 

 that if it were, our forests would not produce a single mast. One 

 of the means appointed to restrain the increase of the white pine 

 weevil is a species of ichneumon-fly, endued with sagacity to dis- 

 cover the retreat of the larva, the body of which it stings, and 



