PINE BARK-BEETLES. 711 



The beetle, male. — It is only oue-third the size of the largest female ; the elytral 

 striae are fiuer, the tubercles at the declivity smaller, the thorax much shorter, not 

 longer than wide, anteriorly much more suddenly rounded and distinctly depressed. 



The female (or one supposed to be the subject of its description) is said by Le Conte 

 to be closely allied to X xylographus, but differs by the punctures of the elytra being 

 larger, and the hairs longer; the small punctures of the hind part of the thorax are 

 also more evident, and the denticles of the posterior declivity of the elytra are fewer, 

 being scarcely more than two on each of the alternate intervals. Length, 1 line. 

 (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, ii, p. 145.) 



40. The coarse-writing bark-beetle. 



Tomicus calligraphus Germar. 



Under the bark of the pitch pine and other species of pine, mining long and often 

 zigzag tracks lengthwise of the tree, these tracks having short, coarse, irregular 

 branches, a chestnut-brown bark-beetle 0.18 to 0.22 long, clothed with numerous 

 yellowish gray hairs, its thorax rough anteriorly from close elevated points, and 

 punctured posteriorly, its wing-covers with rows of coarse punctures, their tip 

 broadly excavated as though with a gouge-chisel, the surface of this excavation 

 rough from coarsish punctures, and its margin on each side with five or six small 

 unequal teeth. Appearing mostly in the month of May. (Fitch.) 



"This species was originally named exesus, or the excavated bark- 

 beetle, in allusion to the tips of its wing-covers, in the old Catalogue 

 of Rev. F. V. Melsheiraer, under which name a short account of it was 

 published by Mr. Say in the year 1826. Germar, however, had de- 

 scribed it two 3^ears before, under the name calligraphus, meaning ele- 

 gant writer, which name it must retain, although not happily chosen, 

 the tracks which this beetle forms under the bark being coarse, irreg- 

 ular, confused, and far less beautiful than those of many of the species 

 of this genus. 



"It is in the pitch pine that this beetle mostly occurs in the State of 

 New York, but I have also met with it in the limb of aged white pines, 

 and farther south it is common in the yellow pine. Its burrow is some- 

 what like that of Xyleborus ccelatus, consisting of a single long fur- 

 row extending lengthwise of the tree or limb, from 6 to 12 inches in 

 length, but it is less straight in this species, being usually curved more 

 or less, and according to accounts it is often perfectly zigzag. The 

 same notches are formed along its sides as noticed in the foregoing 

 species, in which the eggs are deposited; but the lateral burrows which 

 branch from the central one have no regularity whatever to them, being 

 given off sometimes obliquely and sometimes at right angles, sometimes 

 abruptly widening into a broad, irregular, flat cavity, and sometimes 

 continuing of the same width through their whole length, either straight, 

 irregularly wav^y, or tortuous, turning here and there wherever an unoc- 

 cupied space occurs into which they can be extended. These branches 

 are usually of the same width with the central gallery, and like it are 

 furrowed equally deep in the outer surface of the wood and the inner 

 surface of the bark. The pupa state is passed in a cell excavated in 

 the bark, and not in the wood, as in the foregoing species, and when 



