66 



FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



Mr. P. Barry, of the Mount Hope nurseries, Rochester, has forwarded to us sections 

 of the body of some young apple trees, which were sent to him from a correspondent 

 in Hillsborough, iu southern Ohio, who states that in that vicinity the borer, which 

 is contained in the specimens sent, is doing great damage to the apple trees, and that 

 he has had peach trees also killed by this same worm. From an examination of these 

 specimens, it appears that this insect is quite similar to the common apple-tree borer 

 in its habits. The parent insect deposits its eggs ou the bark, from which a worm 

 hatches, which passes through the bark and during the first periods of its life consumes 

 the soft sap-wood immediately under the bark. But when the worm approaches ma- 

 turity and has become stronger and more robust, it gnaws into the more solid heart- 

 wood, forming a flattish, and not a cylindrical hole such as is formed by most other 

 borers, the burrow which it excavates being twice as broad as it is high, the height 

 measuring t e tenth of an inch or slightly over. It is the latter part of summer when 

 these worms thus sink themselves into the solid heart- wood of the tree, their burrow 

 extending upwards from the spot under the bark where they had previously dwelt. 

 On laying open one of these burrows I fiud it is more than an inch in length, and all 

 its lower part is filled and blocked up with the fine sawdust-like castings of the worm. 

 Thus, when the worm is destined to lay torpid and inactive during the long months 

 of winter, it has the forethought, so to speak, to place itself in a safe and secure re- 

 treat, within the solid wood of the tree, with the hole leading to its cell plugged up 

 so as effectually to prevent any enemy from gaining admission to it. 



Fig. 18. — Mine or burrow made by the apple flat-headed buier (C. femorata) iu the white oak, nat. 



size.— Packard del. 



Still, this worm is not able to secure itstlf entirely from those parasitic insects 

 which are the destroyers of so many other species of its race, and which, as is cur- 

 rently remarked, appear to have been created for the express purpose of preying 

 upon those species, in order to prevent their becoming excessively multiplied. We 

 should expect that this and other borers, lying as they do beneath the bark or 

 within the wood of trees, were so securely shielded that it would be impossible 

 fi>r any insect enemy to discover and gain access to them, to molest or destroy 

 them. But among the specimens sent me by Mr. Barry is one where the worm has 

 been entirely devoured, nothing but its shriveled skin remaining, within and upon 



