COLEOPTERA. W 



tree in search of companions and food. In the daytime it 

 keeps at rest among the leaves of the plants which it devours. 

 The trees and shrubs principally attacked by this borer, are 

 the apple-tree, the quince, mountain ash, hawthorn and other 

 thorn bushes, the June-berry or shad-bush, and other kinds of 

 Amelanchier and Aronia. Our native thorns and Aronias are 

 its natural food; for I have discovered the larvie in the stems 

 of these shrubs, and have repeatedly found the beetles upon 

 them, eating the leaves, in June and July. It is in these 

 months that the eggs are deposited, being laid upon the bark 

 near the root, dm-ing the night. The larvce hatched therefrom 

 are fleshy whitish grubs, nearly cylindrical, and tapering a little 

 from the first ring to the end of the body. The head is small, 

 horny, and brown ; the first ring is much larger than the others, 

 the next two are very short, and, with the first, are covered 

 with punctures and very minute hairs ; the following rings, to 

 the tenth inclusive, are each fmnished, on the upper and under 

 side, with two fleshy warts situated close together, and desti- 

 tute of the little rasp-like teeth, that are usually found on the 

 grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles ; the eleventh and twelfth 

 rings are very short; no appearance of legs can be seen, even 

 with a magnifying glass of high power. The grub, with its 

 strong jaws, cuts a cylindrical passage through the bark, and 

 pushes its castings backwards out of the hole from time to 

 time, while it bores upwards into the wood. The larva state 

 continues two or three years, during which the borer will be 

 found to have penetrated eight or ten inches upwards in the 

 trunk of the tree, its burrow at the end approaching to, and 

 being covered only by, the bark. Here its transformation takes 

 place. The pupa does not differ much from other pupse of 

 beetles ; but it has a transverse row of minute prickles on each 

 of the rings of the back, and several at the tip of the abdomen. 

 These probably assist the insect in its movements, when casting 

 off" its pupa-skin. The final change occurs about the first of 

 June, soon after which, the beetle gnaws through the bark that 

 covers the end of its burrow, and comes out of its place of 

 confinement in the night. 



