PINE BORERS. 695 



head. It is the opinion of a majority of the people in the South that the worm fol- 

 lows the death of the yellow pine, but close investigation has ])roved that although 

 they never attack a forest or body of timber without first having a dead tree to 

 start upon, they do not adhere to the rule after ouce getting a start. For instance, 

 should a tree from any cause be felled or lodged against other timber, where 

 the two are standing very close together, the worm will enter ihe adjacent timber 

 though it be green and alive, and in this manner continue to spread until the entire 

 forest is destroyed. Indeed, I have known instances where only a small sapling 

 lodged against other timber caused considerable injury to the timber by souring, and 

 thus attracting the parent worm or saw-fly, and after accomplishing their work on 

 the sapling they lose no time in removing their forces and attacking any of the tim- 

 ber that may be next closest ; and in this way continue to spread until vast forests 

 are denuded of their timber. 



The parent fly, or rather bug, is 1| inches long, and of an iron-gray color. It has two 

 feelers, or indicators, projecting from the head, from 2 to 2^ inches long, about the 

 size of a very coarse horse-hair. They are also provided with two teeth, operated by 

 them similar to a pair of pincers, which are used in cutting through the pine bark 

 to deposit their eggs. They attack the trunk of the tree first, and at any time dur- 

 ing the summer season, but they seem to be more numerous and destructive during 

 the months of June and July. The bug begins by eating numerous small holes 

 through the bark, and very dexterously it deposits from four to six eggs in the edge 

 of the sap, at the bottom of the hole thus made. From two to three days after the 

 eggs are deposited in the sap, they hatch and produce a worm one-fourth of an inch 

 long, which immediately begins eating the sap, and steadily continues until the sap 

 of the entire tree is consumed. A. full grown worm is li inches long, and is at any 

 age a clear, white color, excepting the head, which is dark red. They have no legs, 

 but are seemingly jointed, and perfectly powerless to get about or travel, unless they 

 are in their hole, where they utilize those joints to answer them the purpose of legs, 

 and travel with astonishing rapidity. 



As the worms become full grown and the sap scarce, they enter the sappy portion of 

 the timber, and cutting and forming a hole as they go of suflicient size to admit 

 them, they thus wind about through it and render it worthless, even before it has 

 been damaged by decay. So prevalent and sure are they in the summer months that 

 the mill men of the South dare not keep a supply of logs longer than a few weeks in 

 advance, unless they are provided with a boom or body of water of some sort to 

 place them in, which is the only means of etfectually preventing the logs from being 

 eaten. 



21. The marbled pine-borer. 

 Monohammus marmoratus Randall. 



A large white grub very similar to the last preceding one, and boring in the interior 

 of the wood, often in the same trees and logs with it. The beetle coming abroad in 

 July and very similar to the preceding, but always smaller, measuring 0.75 to 0.90 in 

 length, and distinguished trom it by having the short hairs coating the basts of the 

 spine on each side of the thorax of anocher-yellow color instead of white, the thorax 

 with numerous confluent punctures across its middle, its wing-covers ash-gray mar- 

 bled with tawny brown cloud-like spots, and punctured like the preceding species, 

 but the punctures here becoming much more dense towards the base and running 

 into each other, the antennae in the females with an ash-gray band at the base of 

 each joint, their length in the two sexes as in the preceding species. (Fitch.) 



This is not a particularly common insect, though more closely allied 

 to the foregoing species than the following better known one. 



