Insects Bred from American Larch 49 
Eccoptogaster picee Swaine 
Eccoptogaster piceew has been previously recorded from 
only two localities — Hudson, Quebec (Swaine, 1910, p. 33), 
and from Steuben county, Ind. (Blatchley and Leng, 1916, 
p- 589). Swaine obtained his specimens from the brood 
burrows in the branches of white spruce (Picea canadensis) 
while Blatchley and Leng record it from tamarack (Larix 
laricina).* 
Swaine (1910) accompanies his original description of 
this insect with notes upon its habits and descriptions of its 
engravings. Full grown larve and pupe were abundant in 
the latter part of May and the adults began emerging in the 
laboratory June 6 and eg ge-laying began early in July. 
Regarding the burrows he says: “ The egg-tunnels deeply 
score the wood lengthwise of the grain. The tunnels are 
divided into two portions by a nuptial chamber, situated 
usually near the middle, and from the nuptial chamber a 
short, oblique tunnel leads to the entrance-hole above. From 
ten to thirty eggs are laid in shallow nitches along each side 
of the tunnel, and well packed in with fine bits of wood. 
The larval galleries arise from the tunnels in a fairly regular 
manner, but soon through their windings cross each other 
in every direction, but still show a general tendency to follow 
the grain of the wood, which they deeply score.’ 
Our study of a large number of engravings of H. picee 
bring out some additional facts. In the first place, the egg- 
galleries in larch at least are normally not only considerably 
longer than those figured by Swaine ‘but also contain a con- 
siderably larger number of egg-niches as will be readily seen 
by referring to the tabulated data given later. In a study 
of the engravings certain facts appear at first sight. The 
number of egg-galleries in a single burrow varies from one 
to three, by far the greater number of engravings having 
two egg-galleries (Fig. 7). This means, doubtless, that 
* Engravings which were undoubtedly made by this species have been 
observed by the senior author in Picea rubens in the region of Cranberry 
Lake, but specimens of the beetles have never been obtained from this 
host. 
