REPORT OF THE BOoTANIST. 25 
»The eggs of the insect are deposited along both sides of the , 
upper part of the furrow. They lie close together, almost or 
quite in contact with each other. When the larve emerge from 
the eggs they begin to feed upon the soft cambium and to work 
their way under the bark at right angles to the main furrow. 
They are, at first, so minute and work so close together that 
they make no distinct furrows but seem rather to devour entirely 
a very thin layer of the cambium. But as they increase in size 
they begin gradually to form distinct furrows and to take 
directions more divergent from each other and from their 
original course. In this way colonies from contiguous furrows 
at length run together and in time the whole trunk is sur- 
rounded by their multitudinous pathways, and the death of 
the tree is accomplished. Great care is taken by the parent 
beetles to keep ¢heir furrows separate. No instance was 
observed in which they ran together. In one instance the 
course of a furrow was changed to avoid running into the lateral 
furrows of a colony of larve just above. No furrows were 
found in the tree more than ten or twelve feet from its base, 
thus indicating that the attacks are made upon the lower part 
of the trunk. The attacks are not made simultaneously. 
Some of the furrows in this tree were scarcely more than an 
inch long, and evidently had been just commenced. Others 
were fully excavated and contained eggs, and in others still 
the larvee had hatched and commenced their work, but in none 
were they fully grown. In another tree, a few rods distant 
from the first, the attack had evidently been made earlier in 
the season, for the larvee were farther advanced in size and the 
bark, on one side of the tree was well loosened, though, strange 
to say, the otherside of the trunk was comparatively unharmed. 
I was unable to discover why, in this instance, the attack was 
limited to one side of the trunk. It is pretty evident, there- 
fore, that the trees are attacked all along during the months of 
June and July and possibly as lateas August. I suspect, also, 
that the parent beetle, after having established a colony in one 
place may emerge from her furrow to repeat the operation in 
another place, either in the same trunk or in a different one, 
but this I was not able to ascertain definitely. 
A whitish fungus, Polyporus volvatus Pk., scarcely larger 
than a hickory nut, occurs in considerable abundance on the 
