148 JOURNAL OF THE [July, 



one more or less curved, and lying in a groove, which it had 

 made by eating the softened wood down to the solid part. The 

 decay was caused by a fungus. And even at the solid part of 

 the wood, or bottom of the burrow made by the insect, the wood 

 was already softening under the continued action of the fungus. 



There was thus an interesting combination of labor between 

 both parasites — the larva and the fungus. Similarly the Red 

 Man, who once occupied these parts, had his own way of mak- 

 ing a dug-out canoe. After plastering the sides of the selected 

 log with clay, a fire could be made on the uncovered part, and 

 the charred, or burnt portion, to the depth of a small fraction of 

 an inch, could then be removed with a stone adze, and fire again 

 applied, and the process repeated. It was even thus with these 

 ties. The mycelia, or fungoid roots softened the woody tissues, 

 and these were excavated by the cutting or gouging jaws, and 

 so passed into the stomach of the larva, which all the time kept 

 moving along, and furnishing the fungus a new surface for its 

 operations. 



The road-master took up forty-eight ties in the village, re- 

 placing them with new ones. All these were delivered at my 

 house. Everyone was attacked by fungus and larvse, in the 

 manner here described, throughout the entire length and sur- 

 face of its two sides ; while the flat, hewn surfaces, above and 

 below, were not attacked. The larvae were present in great 

 numbers. I have some here in alcohol ; also a specimen of each 

 sex of the imago, or perfect beetle. 



As to the extent of the mischief done : — as mentioned, not an 

 inch of surface of the sides escaped, and the depth of the tim- 

 ber thus consumed was from an inch and a half to three and a 

 half inches. If we should call it an average of two and a quar- 

 ter inches, as these ties were eight feet and six inches in length, 

 and averaged fully seven inches in thickness, we should have, 

 in round numbers, one hundred and nineteen cubic feet of oak 

 thus eaten up on forty-eight ties. 



It is a question now ; how long did it take to accomplish this ? 

 As to the tune occupied by the fungus, the data are lacking. I 

 think, however, we are better off in respect to the time taken by 

 the larvse. It was my good fortune to determine the length of 

 time required by the larvK of the Goldsmith Beetle, Cotalpa 

 lanigera, to attain, from the egg, the imago state. I found this 



