APPLE-TRUNK BUPRESTIS — ITS HISTORY. 25 



rain to enter and soak downwards, will destroy the worm. And 

 it may be that by introducing soap or some other substance into 

 the hole, the tree will be aided in its recovery, and the bad scar- 

 be prevented which commonly results from the wound made by 

 this worm. These are points which can only be determined by 

 experiments which I have not yet had opportunities for carrying 

 into operation. 



Boring under the bark and in the solid wood; a pale yellow, footless grub, 

 its anterior end enormously large, round and flattened. 



Running up and down the trunk and limbs in June and the fore part of 

 July; an oblong, brassy-blackish snapping beetle, nearly half an inch 

 long, its back under its wings brilliant bluish green. 



The Thick-legged Buprestis, or Snapping-beetle, Chrysobothris 

 femoral a, Fabricius. 



Another insect, which has not heretofore been noticed in our 

 country as a borer in the Apple tree, pertains to the Family 

 Buprestidje, or the brilliant snapping beetles. Mr. P. Barry, of 

 the Mount Hope nurseries, Rochester, has forwarded to us sections 

 of the body of some young Apple trees, which were sent to him 

 from a correspondent in Hilisboro, in southern Ohio, who states 

 that in that vicinity the borer, which is contained in the specimens 

 sent, is doing great damage to the Apple trees, and that lie has had 

 Peach trees also killed by this same worm. From an examination 

 of these specimens, it appears that this insect is quite similar to 

 the common Apple tree borer in its habits. The parent insect de- 

 posits its eggs on the bark, from which a worm hatches, which 

 passes through the bark and during the first periods of its life con- 

 sumes the soft sap wood immediately under the bark. But when 

 the worm approaches maturity and has become more strong and 

 robust, it gnaws into the more solid heart-wood, forming a flattish, 

 and not a cylindrical hole such as is formed by most other 

 borers — the burrow which it excavates being twice as broad as it 

 is high, the height measuring the tenth of an inch or slightly 

 over. It is the latter part of summer when these worms thus 

 sink themselves into the solid heart- wood of the tree, their burrow 

 extending upwards from the spot under the bark where they had 



