390 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



ochre-yellow. The antennae are rather short and blunt, rust- 

 colored, with a broad black ring in the middle. The wings ex- 

 pand two inches and a quarter, or more ; they are smoky brown 

 and semitransparent. The legs are ochre-yellow, with blackish 

 thighs. The borer, awl, or needle, is as thick as a bristle, spear- 

 pointed at the end, and of a black color ; it is concealed, when 

 not in use, between two, narrow, rust-colored side-pieces, form- 

 ing a kind of scabbard to it. This insect is figured and de- 

 scribed in the second volume of the late Mr. Say's " American 

 Entomology." The male does not appear to have been de- 

 scribed by any author ; and, although agreeing, in some respects, 

 with the two other species, 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 antennae are rust-yellow or blackish. His wings are 

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

 somewhat 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 eggs, while 

 swarms of the males hovered around them. Within a year or 

 two, some large button-wood trees, in Cambridge, have been vis- 

 ited by them in the same way. The female, when about to lay 

 her eggs, draws her borer out of its sheath, till it stands perpen- 

 dicularly under the middle of her body, when she plunges it, by- 

 repeated wrigghng motions, through the bark into the wood. 

 When the hole is made deep enough, she then drops an egg there- 

 in, conducting it to the place by means of the two furrowed 



