ae eee x NU? 4 
‘ ' \ 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE OAK. - 5 
’ 
53. THE GREEN AND RED OAK SPAN WORM. 
Metanema quercivoraria Guenée. 
_ Feeding on the oak, a pale green span worm, marked with red, changing to a 
brownish gray chrysalis, from which a beautiful sickle-winged moth comes, 
54. THE LEAF-ROLLING WEEVIL. 
~ Attelabus bipustulatus Fabr. 
Rolling up the leaves of the red, post, and laurel oak (Q. imbricaria), late in April, 
forming compact, cylindrical cases containing a single egg; the case dropping to the . 
ground, the larva after hatching feeding on the food around it, and finally transforming 
into a long-snouted weevil. A second brood of larve in July. (Murtfeldt.) 
This beetle has the curious habit of rolling up a leaf, trimming and | 
tucking in the lower ends with her beak. The egg is first deposited near 
the tip of the leaf, and a little to one side; the blade of the leaf is then 
cut through on both sides of the midrib, about an inch and a half be- 
low; a row of punctures is made on each side of the midrib of the sev- 
ered portion, which facilitates folding the leaf together, upper surface 
inside, after which the folded leaf is tightly rolled up from the apex to 
the transverse cut, bringing the egg in the center; the concluding oper- 
ation is the tucking in and trimming off the irregularities of the ends. 
A few days after completion the cases, first observed the latter part of 
April, drop to the ground ; by May 15 several larve hatched and fed on 
the dry substance of their nest, and by the end of May they pupate 
within the nest; this state lasted from five to seven days, the first 
beetles issuing by June 2, while a second brood of larvee may be found 
early in July. (Murtfeldt.) 
The larva.—Average dorsal length, 0.22 inch; diameter on abdominal segments, 0.06 
inch, tapering anteriorly from fourth segment. Yellowish white; thoracic segments 
slightly depressed on the back and smaller beneath; abdominal segments convex 
above and flat beneath, each one divided into three irregular shallow transverse folds, 
lateral surfaces with a double row of smooth polished oval tubercles, most symmetrical 
in form and position from segments 4 to 11 inclusive ; above the tubercles on each seg- 
ment is a deep depression. Head horizontal, rounded, small, about half the diameter 
of segment next behind, into which it retreats ; white, the mandibles and other mouth 
parts reddish brown, surrounded by long hairs. 
The pupa is cream white, 0.12 inch long ; abdominal segments sharply ridged ; pos- 
terior extremity terminates in a pair of bristly points, white, tipped with brown. 
The beetle is a small, highly polished black weevil, with two large orange-red spots 
at bases of the wing-cover. (Miss Murtfeldt.) 
I have also found, May 30, on the leaves of the oak near Providence, 
the rolls made by a species of Attelabus, apparently, but they were 
’ slenderer than those of the Attelabus found upon the alder. 
I have also found on the leaves of the oak at the end of May, near 
Providence, Cryptorhynchus bisignatus Say. It may prove to live at the 
expense of this tree. 
55. THE WHITE BLOTCH OAK-LEAF MINER. 
® Lithocolletis hamadryadella Clemens. 
Order LEPIDOPTERA ; family TINEID-©. 
Making a whitish blotch-like mine upon the upper surface of the leaves of different 
‘oaks, a minute, flat, horny, footless, active, brownish-yellow larva, which transforms 
within the mine in a delicate disc-like cocoon. (Comstock. ) 
