THE APPLE-TWIG HORER : ITS LIFE-HISTORY. 1 29 



which are found burroiuing in the pith of the branches of the apple-tree, 

 during the spring." 



Dr. Fitch, in 1856, represents " the twigs withering and their leaves 

 turning brown in midsummer," as the result of the borings. 



Mr. B. D. Walsh, in 1865, states that the beetle may be found in its 

 burrows in the month of June, also, '' I have captured the perfect in- 

 sects in the woods in September ; and as I once found a single speci- 

 men, in the usual situation in an apple-twig, so early in the spring that 

 it must have been there all winter, I infer that they often pass the win- 

 ter in a perfect state. The great bulk of them, however, bore the apple- 

 twigs in June, and not in the preceding autumn ; and / have taken sev- 

 eral in June ivhen they were only just commencing their holes, so that 

 half their bodies stuck out in the open air." 



The statement in the American Entomologist, of December, 1868, p. 

 80, of Messrs. Walsh and Riley, that " we have found the beetles in 

 them [the burrows] head downwards, in the middle of winter," may, 

 perhaps be based only upon the above observation of Mr. Walsh. 



Dr. Shimer, on April 25, 1868, found many specimens of the beetle, 

 of which the larger proportion were dead, in galleries of dead wood of 

 grapevines. They had doubtless been dead for some time, for he writes 

 of them: "the dead specimens were passably fit for preserving." 

 Upon a subsequent occasion [time not stated] he found two of the bee- 

 tles boring into grapevines that had been winter-killed. 



Prof. Riley, in his ^th Report on the Insects of Missouri, in 1872, 

 states as follows : " Both the male and female beetles bore these holes, 

 and may always be found in them, head downwards [? turned from the 

 entrance], during the winter and spring months." 



Mr. Glover, in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 1872, p. 118, repeats the above statement, but obviously quoting from 

 others. 



Dr. Thomas (in 1877) presents reasons for believing that they breed 

 in hickory. 



Prof. Osborn, in 1879 {loc. cit.) assumes, apparently, that the beetles 

 are in the twigs during the winter, and that the burrows are made for 

 winter protection. 



In the American Entomologist, for February, 1880, Prof. Riley re- 

 peats the winter occupancy of the burrows by the beetles. 



Carefully weighing the above, would not a proper conclusion be, that 

 the beetles, as a rule, and perhaps without exception, enter the apple- 

 twigs in or about the early part of the month of June ? They have 

 been seen doing so at that time, and at no other. Otherwise this diffi- 

 17 



