THE ROUNDHEADED APPLE-TREE BORER. Lh 
feed from trees that have been sprayed with arsenical poisons and 
suggests spraying with arsenicals as a possible means of combating 
the borers. . 
When ready to oviposit the female usually crawls down the trunk 
of the tree to the ground and slits the bark with her mandibles (figs. 
4, 7), after which she turns around, inserts her ovipositor into the 
slit (fig. 5) and deposits an egg, the 
whole operation occupying about 
10 minutes. She may deposit as 
many as 5 eggs without resting and 
will then crawl] back up the trunk 
or move away a short distance over 
the ground and fly to the branches 
above or to a neighboring tree. 
The average life of a beetle is 
about 40 or 50 days, although indi- 
viduals occasionally live to be 70 or 
75 days of age. 
NATURAL ENEMIES. 
All observers ‘agree that wood- 
peckers destroy great numbers of 
the borers by drilling into the trees 
and removing them from their bur- 
rows. The marks made by these 
birds in searching for borers may 
be found in the trunks of trees in 
almost any infested orchard. In 
some cases from 50 to 75 per cent of 
the borers are destroyed in this 
way. Most of the borers devoured 
are taken from the pupal cham- 
ber or while they are making the 1S: 12-—Roundheaded apple-tree bor- 
s 5 ers in pupal chambers. Position 
ascent of the trunk preparatory to occupied during winter previous to 
pupation. It is rather unfortunate mee oe PUMICE eR eta 
that the birds so often wait until the borers have done the prin- 
cipal part of their injury to the tree before they remove them. 
Probably both the hairy and downy woodpeckers feed on the 
borers. | 
One hymenopterous parasite, Cenocoelius populator Say, has been 
reported from Indiana, but in many localities this species is doing 
very little in the way of holding the borers in check. 
