500 



COLEOPTERA. 



This insect, according to Fitch, also does mucli injury to the 

 currant, eating the pith "through the whole length of the 

 stalk and leaving it filled with a fine powder. It is about 

 the first of June that the parent insect deposits her eggs upon 

 the currant stalks, and the worms get their growth by the 

 close of the season. They repose in their cells through the 

 winter, changing to pupae with the warmth of the following 

 spring, and begin to appear abroad in their perfect 

 state as early as the middle of Ma}^, the sexes pairing 

 immediately after the}^ come out." (Fitch.) In August, 

 1868, I received from Dr. P. A. Chadbourne, President 

 of Madison University, several branches of the apple 

 containing larvae, which in the next spring changed to 

 this beetle. The}' were very injurious to orchards in 

 Fijr. 491. j^^ig vicinity, and this seems to be the first instance 

 of its occurrence in the apple. The larva (Fig. 491, en- 

 larged thrice) is nearly half an inch long ; it is footless, 

 white, with the head scarcely half as wide as the body and con- 

 siderably flattened ; the segments are rather convex, each hav- 

 ing two rows of minute warts, and the tip is rather blunt, with 

 a few fine golden hairs. It devoured the sap wood and under 

 side of the bark and also the pith, thus locally killing the 

 terminal twigs, and causing the bark to 

 shrivel and peel off, leaving a distinct line 

 of demarcation between the dead and living 

 portions of the twig. Each larva seemed to 

 live in a space one and one-half inches long, 

 there being five holes through the bark within 

 the space of as many inches. On the 16th 

 of August the grubs seemed to have accom- 

 plished their work of destruction, as they 

 were fully grown. The beetle is from .13 to 

 .20 of an inch long, and may be known by its dark, reddish 

 brown, cylindrical body, with a high tubercle at the base 

 of the elytron, an oblique yellowish white line on the basal 

 third, and a broad curved white line on the outer third of the 

 elytron, or wing-cover. 



Saperda Candida Fabr. (bivittata Say, Fig. 492) the well 

 known Apple tree borer, flies about orchards in July in New 



