COLEOPTERA. 91 



viously inserted, this practice promises to be more effectual ; but 

 experiments are wanting to confirm its expediency. 



The tall blackberry, Rubus villosus, is sometimes cultivated 

 among us for the sake of its fruit, which richly repays the care 

 thus bestowed upon it. It does not seem to be known that this 

 plant and its near relation, the raspberry, suffer from borers that 

 live in the pith of the stems. These borers differ somewhat from 

 the preceding, being cylindrical in the middle, and thickened a 

 little at each end. The head is proportionally larger than in the 

 other borers ; the first three rings of the body are short, the 

 second being the widest, and each of them is provided beneath 

 with a pair of minute sharp-pointed warts or imperfect legs ; the 

 remaining rings are smooth, and without tubercles or rasps ; the 

 last three are rather thicker than those which immediately precede 

 them, and the twelfth ring is very obtusely rounded at the end. 

 The beetles from these borers are very slender, and of a cylin- 

 drical form, and their antennae are of moderate length and do not 

 taper much towards the end. The species which attacks the 

 blackberry appears to be the Saperda (Oberea) tripunctata of 

 Fabricius. It is of a deep black color, except the forepart of the 

 breast and the top of the thorax, which are rusty yellow, and 

 there are two black elevated dots on the middle of the thorax, and 

 a third dot on the hinder edge close to the scutel ; the wing- 

 covers are coarsely punctured, in rows on the top, and irreg- 

 ularly on the sides and tips, each of which is slightly notch- 

 ed and ends with two little points. The two black dots on 

 the middle of the thorax are sometimes wanting. This beetle 

 varies from three tenths to half an inch in length. It finishes its 

 transformations towards the end of July, and lays its eggs early in 

 August, one by one, on the stems of the blackberry and rasp- 

 berry, near a leaf or small twig. The grubs burrow directly into 

 the pith, which they consume as they proceed, so that the stem, 

 for the distance of several inches, is completely deprived of its 

 pith, and consequently withers and dies before the end of the 

 summer. In Europe one of these slender Saperdas attacks the 

 hazel-bush, and another the twigs of the pear-tree, in the same 

 way. There are two more kinds in the New England States ; 

 but their habits are unknown to me. 



