﻿118 New York K^fafc College of Forealry 



ons scale-like hairs which are directed mesially and meet in the 

 median line over a faint median carina which would otherwise be 

 inconspicnous. 



Elytra distinctly wider than the pronotum, 1.67 times as long 

 as wide, widest behind the middle ; the sides subparallel, slightly 

 sinuate, very narrowly rounded behind ; basal margins separately 

 rounded, strongly elevated from scutellum to humeral angle and 

 bearing a row of rather slender flattened teeth with rounded 

 points; striae moderately narrow, rather strongly impressed, with 

 regularly placed, deep, coarse punctures ; interspaces wider, con- 

 vex, granulate-punctate, clothed with cinereous scale-like hairs of 

 two sorts — a median row down the center of each interspace, 

 longer, w^der, suberect and better developed posteriorly, and more 

 numerous, smaller, appressed ones arranged at each side and 

 between the coarser ones. Declivity regularly arched with the 

 sutural interspace wider and more strongly elevated. First two 

 and last ventral segments subequal and each as long as the third 

 and fourth combined, the last one rounded behind ; all clothed with 

 fairly abundant, cinereus hairs, longer and more plentiful on the 

 last segment. 



Type — Orono, Maine, Aug. 15, 1919, M. W. Blackman, col- 

 lector; Lot No. M-144-b. 



Host Trees — White pine (Pinus strohus L.), white spruce 

 (Picea canadensis Mill.) and red spruce {Picea ruhens Sarg.). 



This species which is apparently the first of the genus to be 

 recorded from North America is closely allied to Xylechinus 

 pilosus Ratz. but is plainly distinct. On comparison with the 

 European species, a specimen of w^hich has been given me by 

 Doctor J. M. Swaine, the following points of difference are found : 

 The elytral sculpture is considerably coarser in the American 

 species, with the striae deeper, the strial punctures larger and the 

 declivital granules coarser; the elytral vestiture differs in that 

 the central row in each interspace is here longer and more erect 

 than in pilosus and also in the absence of the white band formed 

 by the more plentiful vestiture in the sutural interspaces ; the 

 gj-ound color of the elytra is darker as is also the vestiture ; the 

 vestiture of the front of the head is also longer and the median 

 carina is more strongly developed. This species is apparently the 

 first of the genus to be reported from America, north of Guatemala. 

 Blandford assigns five species from Panama and Guatemala to this 

 genus and a single species has been described by Hagadorn from 

 Argentina. In Europe but the one modern species already men- 

 tioned is known. 



X. americanus was taken by the writer in Maine on only two 

 occasions. On August 15, 1919, two individuals were found in 

 their newly started burrows in the bark of a small white pine tree 

 dying from suppression. On October 13, however, a number of 

 brood burrows were found in a small recently dead white spruce 

 tree and these contained a number of voung adults and a few 



