90 C L E P T E R A . 



the bottom of its burrow, makes its escape from the tree in 

 the latter part of Jmic, or beginning of Jnly, and probably 

 deposits its eggs before August has passed. 



This insect, which may be called the hlight-heetle, from the 

 injury it occasions, attacks also apple, apricot, and plum trees, 

 though less frequently than pear-trees. In the latter part of 

 May, IS-tS, a piece of the blighted limb of an apple-tree was 

 sent to me for examination. It was twenty-eight inches 

 in length, and three quarters of an inch in diameter at 

 the lower end. Its surface bore the marks of twenty buds, 

 thirteen of which were perforated by the insects ; and from 

 the burrows within I took twelve of the blight-beetles in 

 a 'living and perfect condition, the thirteenth insect having 

 previously been cut out. On the 9th of July, 1844, the 

 Hon. M. P. Wilder sent to me a piece of a branch from 

 a plum-tree, which contained, within the space of one foot, 

 four nests or branching burrows, in each of which several 

 insects in the grub and chrysalis state were found, and also 

 one that had completed its transformations. Soon afterwards 

 I caught one of the blight-beetles on a plum-tree, probably 

 about to lay her eggs. In the following month of August, 

 I received a blighted branch of an apricot-tree, one inch in 

 diameter at the largest end, and containing, Avithin the short 

 distance of six inches, seven or eight perfect blight-beetles, 

 each in a separate burrow, and vestiges of other burrows 

 that had been destroyed in cutting the branch.* 



This little beetle, which is only one tenth of an inch in 

 length, was named Scolytus Pyri^ the pear-tree Scolytus, by 

 Professor Peck. It is of a deep brown color, with the 

 antennas and legs of the color of iron-rust. The thorax is 

 short, very convex, rounded and rough before ; the Aving- 

 covers are minutely punctured in rows, and slope off very 

 suddenly and obliquely behind ; the shanks are widened 

 and flattened towards the end, beset with a few little teeth 



* See my coininunications on these insects in the Massachusetts I'loui^hnian lor 

 June 17, 1843. Also Downing's Horticulturist for February, 1848, Vol. II. p. 365. 



