INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE OAK. 13 
have not as yet been carefully studied in America, and for any exact 
knowledge we have to go to French and German authors. 
According to Perris, the Buprestids couple in the usual manner, the 
male mounting upon the back of the female, the act of copulation not 
being of long duration. 
The form of the eggs and their size in our species are unknown, or 
have not been stated in print. It is most probable that the female lays 
them in the bottom of cracks in the bark, or under the partly loosened 
bark at least, where the larva upon hatching may find itself next to or im- 
mediately in contact with the bast or the sap-wood, which probably forms 
the greater part of its food, though Ratzeburg has found that the ‘frass” 
or excrement is colored by the bark, which indicates that the larve feed 
both on the bast and bark. As tothe number of eggs laid by the female 
we have no information. The eggs are deposited in fissures or cracks 
by means of the extensile end of the body. As Westwood states, ‘‘ The 
abdomen appears to be composed of only five segments. The remainder 
are, however, internal, and constitute in the female a retractile, corneous, 
conical plate, employed for depositing the eggs in the chinks of the bark 
of trees within which the larvie feed.” Perris, however, says that ‘the 
eggs are deposited in the interior of the bark, the outer layers of which 
the ovipositor of the female penetrates.” 
It has been claimed by Ratzeburg and also by Reifsig* that the 
European larve of Buprestis and the numerous allied genera, such as 
Chrysobothris, Chaleophora, &c., attain their full size in two years; but 
according to Perris the time required for transformation is but a single 
year, as may be seen by the extracts from his work further on. 
As regards the habits of the larve we have no direct observation on 
the young of this family in this country, though much needed in connee- 
tion with the use of remedial measures. 
Mr. E. Perris, in his invaluable work, entitled “Insectes du Pin mari- 
time,” says of the larva of the European Ancylocheira flavomaculata : 
The larva of the 4. flavomaeulata lives in the wood of old pines recently dead, and 
especially in the larger branches and the large twigs (picuxc). It is, indeed, under these 
two last conditions that they oftenest occur. It does not stop in the bark, because it 
is in the interior of the bark that the female lays its eggs, by means of its oviduct, 
and after its birth it plunges into the wood to the depth of about a centimeter [nearly 
two-fifths ofaninch]. It follows the longitudinal fibers of the sap-wood while making 
a gallery elliptical in section, which it leaves behind it completely filled and packed 
with excrement and detritus. When the time of its metamorphosis approaches it 
goes towards the surface of the sap-wood, perforates it to the bark, sometimes makes 
a small incision into the latter, stops up the gallery with a plug made entirely of 
small, compacted chips; then it retires backward a little into a cell scooped out in the 
wood, and this is where it transforms into a pupa. 
The following extract from Perris refers to the habits of Chrysobothris 
_solieri, which alsolives on the maritime pine in France. The habits of 
*Ratzeburg’s Die Waldverderbniss, &c., ii, p. 360. 
