THE INSECT WORLD. 



209 



of apple-trees may suddenly wilt and the leaves become brown 

 and dry, the fruit, if any, dropping to the ground. These 

 wilted shoots will be found hollowed out, and the culprit is the 

 larva of another little brown longicorn, about one-quarter of an 

 inch in length, quite robust and cylindrical, the wing-covers a 

 little mottled with rather long, pale hair. It is a species of 

 Eupogonius which has not figured much in economic literature, 

 because its injuries rarely amount to gapre than a light summer 

 pruning. On smaller trees the infested shoots can be cut and 

 destroyed and on larger trees careful winter pruning is indicated. 

 A well-known orchard pest is the round-headed apple-borer, 

 the larva of the Saperda Candida. It attacks quince in prefer- 



FiG. 200. 



w c ^ 



Round-head apple-borer, Saperda Candida. — a, larva ; b, pupa; c, adult. 



ence even to apple, but is more rarely found in pear. The 

 beetle appears late in June or early in July, depending somewhat 

 upon latitude, and lays its eggs on the trunk, as near to the surface 

 of the ground as possible, under a loose bark-scale or in a little 

 hole gnawed by its mandibles. The larva lives for a year in the sap 

 wood, then bores into the trunk, up or down, sometimes some 

 distance below the surface, and in the .spring of the third year 

 changes to a beetle. Trees of quite large size are killed in a 

 very few years, and for some time before are sickly and do not 

 properly mature a crop of fruit. All sorts of remedies and 

 devices have been proposed, cutting out the larvae being the one 

 most relied upon even yet. This means, in many cases, making 

 an additional large wound in the tree, and sometimes the remedy 

 is worse than the disease. The best method of protection, and 



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