PACIFIC COAST COLEOPTERA. 65 



stumps whose trunks had been felled years before. Last 

 year I bred several from the decayed part of an old oaken 

 chopping block. In fact Dr. Packard himself throws some 

 doubt upon the destructive habit of P. laticollis, for in his 

 note he quotes the report for 1872 of Prof. S. J. Smith, En- 

 tomologist to the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, as fol- 

 lows: " I have noticed it in logs of poplar, bass-wood and 

 oak, and in the trunks of old, decaying apple tree.-;." 



On page 137 op. c'lt. is the following: "We have found 

 Buprestid and Longicorn borers in a dead sweet gum tree." 

 The caption at the head of the page, *' Insects Injurious to 

 the Sweet Gum," seems designed to lead to the inference 

 that these borers killed the tree. But my observation is 

 that the larv?e of insects of the two families noted feed only 

 on dead wood. 



Again, on the same page, Ptilinus basalis and Micracis 

 hirtella are listed as injurious to the California Bay. These 

 species are both found in Berkeley, and I have observed 

 their habits for the last seven years, and as a result of such 

 observation I am in a position to assert that they bore into 

 the twigs of the tree mentioned only when dead, dried and 

 decaying. 



On page 71, op. cU., we find a figure of Oncideres cingu- 

 latus in the act of girdling a hickory twig. In connection 

 with this insect we meet with one of the most interesting 

 and remarkable points in the whole range of insect biology. 

 For, knowing that its larva will have to feed upon dead and 

 sapless wood, this. beetle, at tho time of depositing its egg 

 in the livinsj and easil}- penetrated green wood, has instinct 

 or forethought to girdle the twig, and thus assure the future 

 larva the conditions necessarj' for its metamorphosis. 



The question, "Are Curculio larva lignivorous ?" has 

 been partially discussed in Bulletin of the Brooklyn Ento- 

 mological Society, vol. vii, page 150, by Warren Knaus, 

 and in Entomologica Americana, vol. i, page 18, by W. H. 

 Hai'rington. The question was brought up by the finding of 



