89 



severe, as it had also been in 1898, was due to the attacks of a large 

 black Ijeetle, IIajjxdMS_j^idi^hi[m(s. Years ago I recorded the fact of 

 this insect attacHiig the seeds of ragweed, but it has usually been 

 considered predaceous, and therefore beneficial. The beetle seems 

 not to care at all for the berry, either green or ripe, but in extracting 

 the seeds it leaves the ripe berry a pulpy mass that is absolutelj^ worth- 

 less, while the younger berries are so gnawed upon the surface as to pre- 

 vent their maturing. Wherever the clusters of injured berries were 

 found in the field one or more of these beetles was to be found in the 

 near vicinity, generally hiding away under a clod, a small stone, or in 

 holes in the ground. An examination of the stomach of f reshlv caught 

 beetles showed a vast amount of the softer portions of strawberry seeds 

 reduced to small bits. In no case did the hull of the seed appear to 

 have been eaten. The beetles are large and conspicuous, easily trapped 

 and killed when it is once known that the}^ are the authors of the mis- 

 chief, but in every case where this injury has been reported to me, speci- 

 mens of the Myodocha have accompanied the complaint. I have already 

 received other reports of this injury from the same vicinity. One of 

 the persons who has sufl'ered from the ravages of this insect states that 

 they worked very badly on his premises in 1898, but not very severely 

 in 1899, but this 3^ear again they are seriously destructive. Burning 

 the patches over does not seem to be effective. From the fact that the 

 Hemipter has alwa^^s accompanied the first complaints of this trouble, 

 1 am wondering if the published reports of its injury in other States 

 have not really been due to the work of the Harpalus. 



On August 28, 1899, while Mr. Mally was inspecting a small nursery, 

 he found what he took to be larva?, of the round-headed apple-tree 

 borer, working in the bases of young linden trees. These were trans- 

 ferred to a breeding cage in the insectary. June 15 of the present 

 3^ear it became necessary to move this cage and in the badly eaten and 

 partially decayed wood about i inches below the surface of the 

 ground, active larvae were found. On April 3 of the present year 

 there emerged from one of these stumps an adult Saperda vestita. 

 April 4 the material still remaining in the breeding cage was examined, 

 and one larva and one pupa were found still in the wood. The larva 

 had worked in the wood and tap root entirely below the surface of the 

 ground, the upper limit of the work of the larva being from 2 to 4 

 inches below the point that marked the surface of the ground Avhere 

 the trees had been growing. When ready to pupate the larva seems 

 to bore upward in the wood to what would be about on a level with 

 the surface of the ground, and pupates in a cell cut diagonally across 

 the grain of the wood at an angle of about 45 degrees to the upward 

 channel. This insect has always been known as attacking the linden, 

 but I believe this is the first record of its being found attacking trees 

 below the surface of the around. 



