January iS.yi.] 



psrcHE. 



295 



past summer, in explorations for the 

 Geological survey, I found that the 

 strata of a considerable tract of country, 

 certainly many, probably hundreds ofi 

 square miles in extent, lying in western 

 Colorado and eastern Utah, were packed 

 with fossil insects as closely as at Flor- 

 issant, where they occupy a lake basin 

 of relatively small proportions : whether 

 these new localities will excel or even 

 equal that place in the variety of their 

 fossil treasures, is yet to be determined ; 

 but there can hardly be any doubt that 

 we shall soon be able in our western 

 territories to rehabilitate successive 

 faunas as successfully as has been done 



with many of our vertebrate types, and 

 as has not yet been done for insects in any 

 country in the world. Nor are we 

 confined to our later beds ; insect de- 

 posits have now been found in a score 

 of places in our extensive carboniferous 

 series, and it is in no way improbable 

 that we may find our own Commentry 

 to double the value of the French dis- 

 covery. What we really need is a score 

 of trained workers to "go in and pos-. 

 sess the land.'* No one would welcome 

 tliem more heartily than one who is 

 almost a solitary worker in the Ameri- 

 can field. 



THE AMERICAN PLUM BORER 'EUZOPHERA SEMI-FUNERALIS' 



WALK. 



BY STEPHKX ALFRED FORBES, CHAMPAIGN. ILL. 



Although various boring insects have 

 occasionally attacked the plum, these 

 have been species whose principal inju- 

 ries are done to other trees, and no dis- 

 tinctive plum borer has hitherto been 

 known in this country. Among these 

 incidentals enemies are the peach borer 

 {^Sannina exitiosa) the flat-headed 

 apple-tree borer ( Chrysobothris femo- 

 ratd) the so-called pear-blight beetle 

 iyXyleborus pyri)^ and one of the twig 

 borers {Elaphidion v 11103117)1) . Some- 

 what recently a newly imported Europe- 

 an bark beetle, Scolytus rugulosus. has 

 attacked a variety of fruit trees, the plum 

 among them, but by none of these insects 

 has any constant and serious injury been 

 done to the latter fruit, so far as I am 



now aware. In a species first described 

 (in this country) in 1S87, and whose 

 immature stages have remained un- 

 known until the present time, we have 

 our first example of a borer devoted, so 

 far as now known, to the plum alone. 



This species was first reported to me 

 as injurious 21 August 1S87, in a letter 

 from Farmingdale, Sangamon county, 

 Illinois, accompanied by a few borers 

 found in young Chinese plum trees 

 {Prunus simoiii) ^ one of which was 

 nearly killed by them. 



The attack was described as most 

 general near the forks of the trees, 

 especially at the bases of the lower limbs^ 

 but the larvae were sometimes found an 

 inch, or less, within the earth. The 



