734 FIFTH EEPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



seems to prevail iu the life-history of Sciapteron jnni Kellicott, a species 

 described by its author in the Can. Eutom., 1881. (See p. 726.) 



iLfo/Ti.— Male. Forewiugs with the margins all black, the costal edge rather broad. 

 Hind wings, with the costal and base of the abdominal margin, pale yellow. Beneath, 

 the forewings have the margins lemon yellow, as far as the discal mark, beyond 

 this, black. Hind wings as on the upper side. Head and. antennse jet black. Palpi 

 lemon yellow, black at the sides. Fore femora, orbits of eyes and. base of wings 

 beneath lemon yellow. Middle and hiud femora black. Tibiae lemon yellow, bor- 

 dered with black. Thorax with collar, tegulae, the two narrow dorsal lines, and a 

 basal line lemon yellow. Abdomen, with all the segments except the fourth, narrowly 

 bordered with rich lemon yellow. Caudal tuft yellow below, blackish above. 

 Female similar, but a little larger and more robust, the abdominal band broader and 

 better defined. Expanse of wings, male, 24"""; female, 30"'°^ (H. Edwards.) 



68. The pine blight. 



Coccus jyinicorticis Fitch. 



Order Hemiptera ; family Coccid.e. 



Externally, upon the smooth bark of young trees, patches of white flocculent down- 

 like matter, covering exceedingly minute lice, invisible to the naked eye. (Trans. 

 N. Y. State Ag. Sjc, 1854, p. 871. Compare also an article by Dr. H. Shimer in 

 Trans. Amer. Soc, ii, pp. 383-385.) 



AFFECTING THE TWIGS. 



69. The white-pine weevil. 

 Piasodes strobi Peck. 

 (Larva, Plate xxiii ; Fig. 5 ; pupa, fig. 6; also Plate xxvii.) 

 Order Coleoptera ; family Curculionidje. 



In May, depositing numerous eggs in the bark of the topmost shoot of young tiees, 

 the larvEe from which mine iu the wood and pith, causing the shoot to wither and die, 

 thereby occasioning a crook or fork in the body of the tree at this point ; an oblong 

 oval and rather narrow weevil about a quarter of an inch long, of a dull dark chest- 

 nut-brown color, with two dots on the thorax ; the scutel and a short irregular band 

 back of the middle of the wing-covers milk white, the wing-covers also variegated 

 with a few patches of tawny yellow. 



For many years past our attention has been drawn to the deformities 

 produced in forest trees by this beetle, as well as the injury it commits 

 in plantations and to ornamental trees on lawns and about houses. 



Dr. Fitch has already outlined the natural history of the insect in his 

 fourth report. We have not yet been able to detect the beetle in the 

 act of egg-laying. Fitch says that the weevil deposits her eggs in the 

 bark of the topmost shoot of the tree, dropping one in a place at irreg- 

 ular intervals through its whole length. " The worm which hatches 

 from these eggs eats its way inwards and obliquely downwards till it 

 reaches the pith, in which it mines its burrow onwards a short distance 

 farther, the whole length of its track being only about half an inch. 



