676 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



tbeir work is not so apparent, since the roots grow rapidly, but in dry 

 seasons they become most destructive and annoying. 



Fig. 217. — May beetle and its transformations — "J, 

 1, pupa.— After Riley. 



AFFECTING THE TRUNK. 



2. The large pine flat-headed lorer. 



Chalcophora virgitiienais (Drnry). 



Order Coleoptera ; family Buprestid^. 



Boring in the sap-wood and girdling the tree, a flat-headed, white grub ; the track 

 beginning as narrow and shallow groves on the surface of the wood, forming irregu- 

 lar wavy or serpentine tracks, which gradually increase in width as the larva grows, 

 ending in a large hole where the grub pupates ; the beetle occurring on the leaves in 

 spring and autumn. 



The habits of this beetle in its preparatory stages are probably much 

 like those of Chrysobothris femorata, which infests the oak, and the 

 galleries which it makes under the bark are much like those of the 

 oak buprestid. No thorough observations have been made upon the 

 natural history of this interesting beetle. It appears in the Northern 

 States toward the end of May, and through the month 

 of June, as Harris states, while we have observed it 

 in Maine on pine trees the middle of July, and Fitch 

 states that it occurs upon the leaves of the pine in 

 autumn. Harris says that in the larva state it bores 

 into the trunks of the different kinds of pines, and is 

 oftentimes very injurious to these trees. 



Beetle. — Oblong oval, brassy or copper- colored, sometimes al- 

 most black, with hardly any metallic reflections. The upper side 

 of the body is roughly punctured; the top of the head is deeply indented; on the 



Fig. 218— Chalco- 

 phora virginien- 

 sis. — Marx del. 



