54- BUPREvSTID-REETLES. 



is somewhat misleading', as this insect is by no means confined to 

 the apple, but injures a great variety of orchard and forest trees. 

 It is one of the most injurious of all buprestids. Professor Saun- 

 ders, in his book. ''Insects Injurious to Fruits," a book that ought 

 to be in the hands of every fruit-grower, gives the following life- 

 history of this pest: 



"This pest is common almost everywhere, affecting alike the 

 frosty regions of the North, the great West, and the sunny 

 South. It is much more abundant than the two-striped borer, 

 and is a most formidable enemy to apple-culture. It attacks also 

 the pear, the plum, and sometimes the peach. In the Southwest- 

 ern States it begins to appear during the latter part of May, and 

 is found during most of the summer months ; in the Northern 

 States and in Canada its time of appearance is June and July. It 

 does not confine its attacks to the base of the tree, but affects the 

 trunk more or less throughout, and sometimes the larger 

 branches. 



"The eggs, which are yellow and irregularly ribbed, are very 

 small, about one-fiftieth of an inch long, of an ovoidal form, flat- 

 tened at one end, and are. fastened by the female with a glutinous 

 substance, usually under the loose scales or within the cracks and 

 crevices of the bark ; sometimes singly, at other times several in 

 a group. The young larva soon hatches, and, having eaten its 

 way through the bark, feeds on the sap-wood within, where, bor- 

 ing broad and flattish channels, a single specimen will sometimes 

 girdle a tree. As the larva reaches maturity it usually bores into 

 the more solid wood, working upward, and, when about 

 to change to a pupa, cuts a passage back again to the outside, eat- 

 ing nearly, but not quite through the bark. Within its retreat 

 it changes to a pupa, which is at first white, but gradually ap- 

 proaches the color of the future beetle, and in about three weeks 

 the perfect insect emerges, and, having eaten through the thiri 

 covering of bark, escapes and roams at large to continue the work 

 of destruction. 



"The mature larva is a pale-yellow, legless grub, with its 

 anterior end enormously enlarged, round, and flattened. At A, 



