14 APPLE-TRUNK BORER ITS BURROW. 



for it has no feet. It is of a white color, with a yellowish tinge 

 to its head. This maggot eats its way directly downwards in the 

 bark, producing a discoloration where it is situated. If the 

 outer dark colored surface of the bark be scraped off with a knife 

 the last of August or forepart of September, so as to expose the 

 clean white bark beneath, as can easily be done without any in- 

 jury to the tree, wherever there is a young worm it can readily 

 be detected. A little blackish spot, rather larger than a kernel 

 of wheat, will be discovered wherever an egg has been deposited, 

 and by cutting slightly into the bark the worm will be found. 

 It gradually works its way onwards through the bark, in- 

 creasing in size as it advances, until it reaches the sap-wood; 

 here it takes up its abode, feeding upon and consuming the soft 

 wood, hereby forming a smooth round flat cavity, the size of a 

 dollar or larger, immediately under the bark. It keeps its bur- 

 row clean by pushing its excrement out of a small crevice or 

 opening through the bark, which it makes at the lower part of 

 its burrow, and if this orifice becomes clogged up it opens another. 

 This excrement resembles new fine saw dust, and enables us rea- 

 dily to detect the presence of the worm by the little heap of this 

 substance which is accumulated on the ground, commonly cover- 

 ing the hole out of which it is extruded, and by particles of it 

 which adhere around the orifice where it is higher up, or in the 

 fork of the tree; the outer surface of the bark also often becomes 

 slightly depressed, or flattened, over this cavity. 



When the worm is half grown, or more, as if conscious it would 

 now form a dainty tidbit for a woodpecker or any other insect-, 

 ivorous bird, and that it was daily becoming less secure in its 

 present situation, by reason ol its burrow being so large, and 

 forming so much of a cavity as to be liable to be detected by any 

 scrutiny made on the outside of the tree, it seeks to place itself 

 in 'a less exposed situation, by gnawing a cylindrical retreat for 

 itself upwards in the solid heart-wood of the tree. Some of its 

 habits are now reversed. The flat cavity which it was so careful 

 to keep clean it is now intent upon filling up and obliterating, as 

 far as it is able, that it may not be discovered. It ceases to eject 

 its castings, and now crowds and packs them in the lower part of 

 its burrow, as it bores a round hole, upward, in the solid wood. 



