TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. 15 



eight perpetual kilns. It has been found necessary, in order to make the cement 

 satisfactory, to bring rock from Milford, Kansas, and mix with the rock obtained 

 near the works. Very little has been manufactured at these works during this year. 

 The cost per barrel at Lawrence of the three cements tested is: Kansas City, 

 11.65; Fort Scott, $1.65; and Portland $4.50. 



NOTE ON THE OVIPOSITION OF A WOOD-BORER. 



BY PROF. E. A. POPENOE, STATE AGRICULTURAL, COLLEGE, MANHATTAN. 



The beautiful beetle known to the entomologist as Tragidion fulvipenne is not 

 common enough to have received a vernacular name, and at no time have we had a 

 surplus stock of specimens in our collections. Being on the watch for facts in 

 its life history, I observed with interest that in the warm days about the end 

 of September, my wood-pile was the center of attraction to a number of these 

 beetles. Noting that all the individuals were females, and that, though at tirst seen 

 only flying, they presently alighted with evidence of an earnest purpose, I watched 

 them more attentively. They seemed to be attracted specially to the smooth sticks 

 of round wood, of a species of oak, without much doubt the chestnut oak, as this is 

 the only smooth-barked oak abundant in the vicinity of Manhattan. Over these 

 sticks they crawled, paying little regard to my presence, their bodies close to the 

 wood, their sensitive antennse carried forward and constantly vibrating, as they in- 

 vestigated apparently every inch of the surface. The evident object of their search 

 was suitable spaces for the deposit of their eggs, and though I watched with sorne 

 care during my noon-hour for several days, I did not succeed in observing the be- 

 ginning act in oviposition. I was fortunate enough to see two females that had not 

 completed their work, however, and so was able to discover the eggs, which I might 

 otherwise have failed to find at all. When detected in oviposition, the females were 

 standing on the smooth bark, transversely to the stick, their bodies close to the 

 surface, their antennae bent under at the tips, which were touching the bark, and the 

 broad tip of the abdomen closely appressed to the surface over which the insect 

 stood. The close contact of the motionless tip of the abdomen to the bark, pre- 

 vented my noting the exact mode of placing the egg, and presently, becoming 

 somewhat impatient, I lifted a beetle from position; and, to my surprise, instead of 

 an opening in the bark as I had anticipated, I saw a tubercle simulating so closely 

 in appearance and color the corky outgrowths common on the bark of the chestnut 

 oak, that I was at first inclined to believe it one of these, and to question the purpose 

 of the female in maintaining so long the position described. On an examination 

 of this tubercle, however, I found it to be hollow, and within it, lying on the bark, 

 with no puncture or abrasion in the latter to be seen, was an oblong egg of a trans- 

 lucent, dull white surface, smooth and without markings so far as I could see with 

 a pocket-triplet of good definition. This egg was sufficient in size nearly to fill the 

 hollow tubercle, or egg-case, as I may now call it. The egg-case is rather regular, 

 elliptical, strongly convex, measuring about one-sixteenth of an inch in length. 

 Under the microscope the case appears on the surface to be made up of scales of the 

 thin external layer of the oak bark, intermingled with glistening particles, as of 

 dried mucus. The case is at this date unchanged, and no sign of the hatching of 

 the egg is yet visible. I have been unable to 'find the record of similar habits in 

 oviposition in any of the Ceramhycidce. Commonly the eggs are either laid under 

 scales or in cracks in the bark, as with most of the wood-borers, or in a roagh fissure 



