426 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



narrow rust-colored side-pieces, forming a kind of scabbard to 

 it. This insect is figured and described in the second volume 

 of the late Mr. Say's " American Entomology." The male 

 does not appear to liave been described by any author; and, 

 although agreeing, in some respects, with the two other spe- 

 cies, represented by Mr. Say, is evidently distinct from both of 

 them. He is extremely unlike the female, in color, form, and 

 size, and is not furnished with the remarkable borer of the 

 other sex. He is rust-colored, variegated with black. His 

 antenna? are rust-yellow or blackish. His wings are smoky, 

 but clearer than those of the female. His hind body is some- 

 what flattened, rather widest behind, and ends with a conical 

 horn. His hind legs are flattened, much wider than those of 

 the female, and of a blackish color; the other legs are rust- 

 colored, and more or less shaded with black. The length of 

 his body varies from three quarters of an inch to one inch and 

 a quarter; and his wings expand from one inch and a quarter 

 to two inches, or more. 



An old elm-tree in this vicinity used to be a favorite place 

 of resort for the Tremex Columba, or pigeon Tremex; and 

 around it great numbers of the insects were often collected, 

 during the months of July and August, and the early part of 

 September. Six or more females might frequently be seen at 

 once upon it, employed in boring into the trunk and laying 

 their esrgs, while swarms of the males hovered around them. 

 For fifteen years or more, some large button-wood trees, in 

 Cambridge, have been visited by them in the same way. The 

 female, when about to lay her eggs, draws her borer out of its 

 sheath, till it stands perpendicularly under the middle of her 

 body, when she plunges it, by repeated wriggling motions, 

 through the bark into the wood. When the hole is made deep 

 enough, she then drops an egg therein, conducting it to the 

 place by means of the two furrowed pieces of the sheath. 

 The borer often pierces the bark and wood to the depth of 

 half an inch or more, and is sometimes driven in so tightly 

 that the insect cannot draw it out again, but remains fastened 

 to the tree till she dies. The eggs are oblong oval, pointed at 

 each end, and rather less than one twentieth of an inch in 



