—— 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE OAK. Zo 
low; in June transforming to a long-horned beetle about 4 inch long, of an ash-gray 
color sprinkled with blackish spots and punctures, and back of the middle of its wing- 
covers an irregular oblique black band; the female with a straight awl-like ovipositor 
nearly + inch in length. (Fitch.) 
The bark called quercitron, of the Quercus tinctoria, is highly valued 
as a dye, and is much worm-eaten by this insect. 
The parent of the worm differs remarkably from all the other beetles of this group 
in that the female is furnished with a straight awl-like ovipositor nearly a quarter 
of an inch in length, projecting horizontally backwards from the end of her body. 
The importance of this implement becomes manifest when we observe the thickness 
of the bark of the black oak, with its outer layers so dry and hard that they form, as 
it were, a coat of mail, protecting the trunk of the tree against the attacks of its 
enemies. Equipped as she is, however, the female of this beetle is able to perforate 
this hard outer bark and sink her eggs through it, placing them where her young 
will find themselves surrounded with their appropriate food. The worms from these 
eges mine their burrows mostly lengthwise of the grain or fibers of the bark, and 
the channels which they excavate are so numerous and so filled with worm-dust of 
the same color with the bark, that it is difficult to trace them. The eggs are de- 
posited the latter part of June, and the worms grow to their full size by the close of 
the season, and will be found during the winter and spring, lying in the inner layers 
of the bark, in a small oval flattened cavity about an inch in length, which is usually 
at the larger end of the track they have traveled. 
The larva is divided by transverse constrictions into twelve rings, the last one 
being double. The head is small and retracted more or less into the neck, its base 
white and shining, and its anterior part deep tawny yellow, and along each side black. 
The neck or first ring is much longer as well as thicker than any of the others, the 
two rings next to it being shortest. From the neck the body of the worm is slightly 
tapered backwards to the middle, from whence it has nearly the same diameter to the 
tip, where it is bluntly rounded. Upon the upper side of the neck, occupying the 
basal half of this ring, is a large transverse tawny-yellow spot, rounded upon its for- 
ward side, but no corresponding spot appears on the under side of this ring. On the 
middle of all the other rings, except the two last, both above and below, is an ele- 
vated, rough, transverse, oval spot of a tawny-yellow color. 
The beetle, like other species of the family to which it pertains, varies greatly in 
its size, specimens before me being of all lengths, from 0.35 to 0.58. It is of an ash- 
gray color from short incumbent hairs or scales, which have a faint tinge of tawny 
yellow except along the suture of the wing-covers. It is also bearded with fine erect 
blackish hairs which arise from coarsish black punctures which are sprinkled over 
the thorax and wing-covers, several of which punctures are in the centre of small 
black dots, which in places are confluent into small irregular spots. The head is of 
the same width as the anterior end of the thorax, and has a deep narrow furrow along 
its middle its whole jength, and on the crown is an oval blackish spot on each side of 
this furrow. The face is dark gray, and the antenne are black with an ash-gray band 
occupying the basal half of each of the joints. The thorax is narrower than the 
wing-covers, more broad than long, and thickest across its middle. Upon each side 
slightly back of the middle is an angular projection or short broad spine, blunt at its 
tip. Onthe middle of the back, between the centre and the base, is a short im- 
pressed line, and on each side of this, extending the whole length of the thorax, is a 
wavy blackish stripe, which is suddenly widened towards its hind end, and is some- 
times interrupted in its middle. Often, also, there is a blackish spot between the an- 
terior ends of these, stripes. extending from the centre of the thorax to its forward 
end. The scutel is ash-gray in its middle and black upon each side. The wing-cov- 
ers almost always show a large oblique and irregular triangular spot of black on their 
outer side forward of the middle, and always behind the middle is an irregular black 
oblique band, which seldom reaches to the suture, and which has a notch in the mid- 
