64 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



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 unlimited increase 

 is not permitted to this destructive insect; and that if it were, 

 our forests would not produce a single mast. One of the 

 Vneans appointed to restrain the increase of the white pine 

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

 discover the retreat of the larva, the body of which it stings, 

 and therein deposits an egg. From the latter a grub is hatched, 

 which devours the larva of the weevil, and is subsequently 

 transformed to a four-winged fly, in the habitation prepared 

 for it. The most effectual remedy against the increase of these 

 weevils is to cut off the shoot in August, or as soon as it is 

 perceived to be dead, and commit it, with its inhabitants, to 

 the fire. Such is the substance of Professor Peck's history of 

 this insect ; to which may be added, that the beetles are fouild 

 in great numbers, in April and May, on fences, buildings, and 

 pine-trees; that they probably secrete themselves during the 

 winter in the crevices of the bark, or about the roots of the 

 trees, and deposit their eggs in the spring ; or they may not 

 usually leave the trees before spring. 



Perhaps the method used for decoying the pine-eating beetles 

 in Europe may be practised here with advantage. It consists 

 in sticking some newly cut branches of pine-trees in the ground, 

 in an open place, during the season when the insects are about 

 to lay their eggs. In a few hours these branches will be cov- 

 ered with the beetles, which may be shaken into a cloth and 

 burned. 



