U. S. D. A., B. E. Tech. Ser. 20, Pt. I. P. T. I., January 7, 1911. 



TECHNICAL PAPERS ON MISCELLANEOUS FOREST 



INSECTS. 



1. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD A MONOGRAPH OF THE BARK- 

 WEEVILS OF THE GENUS PISSODES. 



By A. D. HoPKiN.s, 

 In Charge of Forest Insect Investigations. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The bark-weevils of the genus Pissodes represent an important 

 class of enemies of pine, spruce, and fir trees. For this reason, in 

 the future management of federal, state, and private forests there 

 will be a demand for information on the species and on practical 

 methods of preventing or reducing the damage from their attacks. 

 Heretofore comparatively little has been known about the North 

 American species, and consequently there has been much confusion 

 in collections and in published information, due to the possession 

 of insufficient facts relating to the destructive characters and habits 

 of the described species, and especially because of the number of 

 undescribed species which have not been recognized or have been 

 wrongly identified. 



It is the object of this contribution to revise the generic and specific 

 descriptions, to describe the species recognized by the author as new 

 to science, and to record some of the results of the more technical 

 features of the investigations. Tliis is part of a manuscript on the 

 genus Pissodes which was prepared by the author in 1 905, but which, 

 owing to the pressure of other duties, was not completed. 



The study of this group of beetles has made it plain to the author 

 that there is urgent need for special work on the rhynchophorous 

 beetles of the world, with a view to determining the more important 

 characters on which to base a satisfactory classification of this 

 important division of the Coleoptera. This is, however, too great a 

 task to be undertaken by any one systematist until the principal 

 genera have been thoroughly studied and monographed by specialists. 



For a number of years the writer has given special attention to the 

 family Scolytidfe, with a view to monographing it, and in coiiiuH-tion 



