692 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



of this borer, and which has been the evident cause of the death of 

 many firs in Maine. 



I have seen hundreds, perhaps nearly a thousand, dead firs whose 

 trunks were riddled with the holes of these borers. The spruce is less 

 frequently killed, but I have taken from a dead tree two pieces of 

 spruce bark, each about 6 inches square, one containing sixteen and 

 the other eighteen holes through which the beetle had escaped. Fig. 230 

 represents one of these si)ecimens of natural size. 



Fig. 229. — Oviposition oi Monohammus confusor ; a, a, a, jaw 

 punctures; b, one of them laid open to show position of 

 egg — natural size. (Original.) 



That the larva is not less than two years in attaining its growth is 

 proved by the fact that on examining the same tree in which we saw 

 the female ovipositing, August 30, 1884, the next season, June 26, 1885, 

 I took from under the bark a larva Id"'"* in length, or about one-third 

 as long as the mature worm. 



Larva. — Body soft, white, long, nearly cylindrical, being but slightly flattened, 

 entirely footless, all the abdominal segments of the same width, except the minute 

 i^mall one. From the first abdominal segmtnit (or fourth from the head), the body 

 increases in width, being widest on the protboracic segment (or the one next to the 



