25 



of an incli long and one-sixteenth broad. Its head is black ; middle 

 portion of the body red; th(^ wing covers are marked with zigzag black 

 and gray transverse bands. 



The adult emerges from the bark of the infested tree someM'hat 

 earlier than the sprnce-destroying beetle, and remains hidden under 

 the flakes of bark or in the moss until the adults of the spruce beetle 

 commence to emerge. It then pounces upon tlie beetles as thej- 

 emerge and devours them. When those that escape fly away to settle 

 on the living trees, this little clerid enemy evidently does as other 

 clerid species do. It accomi^anies them and continues its work until 

 the escaping beetles have burrowed into the bark. The adult clerid 

 does not follow them into their galleries, but does the next best thing — 

 deposits its eggs at the entrances, so that the active i-eddish worms 

 hatching therefrom can And their way into the bark and feed on the 

 bark-beetle larvae. 



When the clerid larva? attain their full size they retire from the 

 lai-val mines they have depopulated and enter the central tube in the 

 primary' or egg gallerj^ made by the spruce beetle. This, in fact, seems 

 to be a favorite place for them to make their i^upa cases in which to 

 transform to the pupa and adult. Some of the larvae evidently make 

 pupa cases in the outer l)ark, as is the common habit of nearly all the 

 other species known to the writer; but it would seem that by fai- the 

 greater number pupate within the central tube in the broad egg gal- 

 leries excavated by the bark beetle. 



This clerid is, without doubt, a very efficient enemy of the bark 

 beetle, especiall}' -when it occurs in such numbers as observed in the 

 spruce near the head of the Kennebago River. 



A iiarasite was reared from a pupa ease of this clerid which is very 

 closely allied to a parasite of the imported clerid found by the writer 

 in Germany. 



BIRDS AS ENEMIES OF THE BEETLE. 



As has already l)een stated, woodpeckers are tlie most important 

 enemies of the bark beetle, and appear to be of inestimable value to 

 the spruce-timber interests of the Northeast. Indeed, I feel confi- 

 dent that in the many hundreds of infested trees examined at least 

 one-half of the beetles and their young had been destroj^ed by the 

 birds, and in many cases it was evident that even a greater propor- 

 tion had perished from this cause alone. 



Estimating 100 beetles to the square foot of bark in the average 

 infested tree, and an average of 60 square feet of infested bark, it is 

 l)OSsible for each tree to yield an average of 6,000 individuals; one 

 hundred ti'ees, 600,000, and so on. It is therefoi'c plain that, if one- 

 half or two-thirds of this number are destroyed by the l)ii-(lsand other 

 enemies, the amount of timber the remainder can kill will be h^ssened. 

 This is all the more? apparent when it is rememl)ere<l that it is only 



