THE PINE BORER OR "SAWYER." 689 



barium of Harvard University, Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass., 

 April 3, 1882 : 



I have beeu looking over the copy of your insect "Bulletin No. 7," sent to Dr. 

 Gray, and have been much interested in it. 



I think that I can add an instance of the longevity of insects to those given on 

 page 154, though there may be more of doubt attached to it. My grandfather in 17£0 

 built a house at East Windsor Hill, Conn., the back porch of which was supported by 

 large turned pillars upon bases some 15 inches square and 2 feet high, the whole, 

 I i)resunie, from a single piece of timber, and resting upon the hewn-stone under- 

 pinning, and well painted. Now, in my boyhood, some forty-five years afterward at 

 least, our attention was for a louirtime attracted to a gnawing sound in the base of 

 one of these pillars, and at length there escaped a large brown beetle, if I remember 

 rightly. The hole, as large as my little finger, is probably to be seen there yet. 

 The pillars I suppose to be of our common " yellow pine," Pinua rigida. 



Although this borer is destructive to the white pine, I have not yet 

 met with au instance where a living pine tree has been killed outright 

 by it. In Maine, however, wherever the fir abounds, this insect is very 

 destructive. While the fir is the least valuable of our timber trees, it 

 is a beautiful shade and ornamental tree, though short-lived. It is 

 especially liable to attack from this borer. In passing along any road 

 in Cumberland County, particularly near the sea-coast, and also on the 

 islands in Casco Bay, great numbers of dead firs are to be seen perfo- 

 rated with the round holes, large enough to admit a lead-pencil, made 

 by this borer for the exit of the beetle. 



I have already given instances in Bulletin 7, United States Entomo- 

 logical Commission, pp. 220, 236, of living fir trees killed by this borer. 

 During the past summer I have observed several, at least four or five, 

 living firs in which these borers were at work. The trees were either 

 wholly fresh and alive or some of the branches were dead, as well as a 

 part of the bark on one side. A large number of fully grown worms 

 were taken out of a fir on Frenchman's Island, which was dead on one 

 side, the other half of the tree being alive, and the leaves all fresh and 

 green. There seems no reasonable doubt but that this tree, then, is 

 attacked while in a perfectly healthy state by this borer, and killed 

 after one or two years. 



How thoroughly one or two females of this beetle may stock a single 

 tree with young borers may be seen by reading the following account of 

 observations made by us in the summer of 1884. It should be stated in 

 this connection that we have been told by an intelligent lumberman near 

 Rangely Lake, Maine, that large masses of living firs in that region 

 have been killed outright by the borer, which is undoubtedly this species 

 of beetle. 



This beetle is a member of the family of long-horned beetles ; its anten- 

 nae or feelers being about twice as long as the body. Its body is nearly 

 as thick as one's little finger, and it is of a mottled gray color, marbled 

 with white and dark-brown irregular patches. Thus marked it is, while 

 resting on the bark of a moss-grown and lichen-covered fir, spruce, or 

 5 ENT 44 



