APPLE-TRUNK BORER ITS EGGS. 13 



• 



his trees, saying it had killed nearly half the trees in his or- 

 chard. This was the first time his attention was directed to this 

 insect, and on examination he found that almost every one of his 

 trees had from one to five worms in them; and several were de- 

 stroyed, beyond all possibility of saving them. In one instance 

 he has found twenty of these worms in one tree. For a few 

 years past they have not been so numerous in his vicinity as 

 they previously were. He has kept a pretty accurate account 

 of his fruit trees, and finds that of all the apple trees he has 

 planted, he has lost one in every eight from the borer. The in- 

 sect is more fond of the quince, even, than it is of the apple, in- 

 somuch that he has found it impossible to grow this fruit, the 

 stalks, notwithstanding all the care he has given them, being 

 almost invariably riddled by the borer. Though he has set out 

 very many quince trees during the past sixteen years, he has 

 never been able to get but a dozen quinces, and these were 

 gathered in the fall of 1853, when all kinds of fruit were so 

 abundant in his section of country. 



The accounts which have been given, and the ideas that are 

 prevalent respecting the burrow which this worm excavates in 

 the trees which it attacks are very imperfect, and in part erro- 

 neous. It is the common opinion that it simply bores a cylindri- 

 cal passage upwards in the solid wood of the tree, which passage 

 it keeps clean and empty. If this were the case, a constant effort, 

 I think, would be required to prevent this footless worm from 

 falling to the bottom of its burrow. As we shall see, that part 

 of its operations whereby it does the most injury to the tree, has 

 been hitherto overlooked. 



The winged beetle makes its appearance every year early in 

 June. Like other species of the family of long horned beetles 

 (Cerambycidce) to which it pertains, it flies only by night. In the 

 course of this and the following month the female deposits her 

 eggs, one in a place, upon the bark, low down, at or very near 

 the surface of the earth; but when these beetles are numerous, 

 some of their eggs are placed higher up, particularly in the axils 

 where the lower limbs proceed from the trunk. From each of 

 these eggs is hatched a minute grub, or more properly a maggot, 



