149 



covering a number of them with its web. Several examples of the 

 imago of this larva were reared and the species was determined by 

 Messrs. Schwarz and Pergande as probably Comstock's Dakruma cocci- 

 divora. Subsequently, I observed apparently the larvfe of the same 

 species feeding upon a similar scale on tulip tree twigs in Wood County. 



Insect injurious to tan barl: — May 15, I received a piece of chestnut- 

 oak tan bark from Mr. G. Paunall, of Hampshire County, which had 

 been eaten by a bark-boring larva. Mr. Paunall, who is a dealer in tan 

 bark, informs me that this injury is of common occurrence in bark 

 three or more years old. Upon examining some old bark at a tannery 

 in Morgantown, I found that the larva, which is evidently a Ceram- 

 bycid, is indeed a destructive pest. No living examples could be found 

 at work, but from the number of elytra present, evidently of Phymatodes 

 variabilis, I am led to believe that this species is to blame for the 

 trouble. 



The chestnut timber- ivorm. — On June 3, I discovered the pupa of 

 the chestnut timber worm in chestnut trees and stumj)s near Morgan- 

 town, from which the imagos emerged June 12 to 15, and proved to be 

 the rare beetle, Lymexylon sericeum, and on June 20 1 cut male and 

 female examples of the same thing from a chestnut tree in Wood 

 County. This result will be of interest to Coleopterists from the fact 

 that it explains the mystery regarding a larva first described by Harris 

 (Injurious Insects, p. 68) as that of Eupsalis minuta, subsequently fig- 

 ured by Riley, Sixth Missouri Report, as an undetermined Tenebrionid 

 and correcting Harris' mistake. The same larva was figured and men- 

 tioned by me in " Hardwood," of February 25, 1893, as an undetermined, 

 and probably a new Lymexylid. Also in my catalogue of West Vir- 

 ginia Forest and Shade Tree Insects (p. 190) as a "Lymexylid larva 

 sp. a.;" and in a paper read before the Washington Entomological 

 Society, October 5, 1893,1 referred to the larva as a Lymexylid, basing 

 my conclusions upon a microscopic study of the mouth parts and other 

 external characters in comparison with the lary a> oH Hylecoettis lugubris. 

 In the discussion, Messrs. Riley and Schwarz thought that it must be 

 a Tenebrionid, and that it would probably prove to be the larva of 

 Strongylium. This, together with Prof. Riley's subsequent statement 

 in a letter iS'ovember 23, 1893, that he had tentatively referred the spe- 

 cies to Strongylium led me to mention it in the index to Insects, Bul- 

 letin 35, as "Strongylium sp. (?) Riley, family Tenebrionid<e." That it 

 should prove to be the larva of Lymexylon sericeum was a surprise to 

 us all, and is of especial interest in being another example like Corthy- 

 lus columbianus of an extremely rare insect in collections being the 

 cause of one of the commonest defects in wood, and among the worst 

 timber pests known. It is also of interest in showing Harris's error 

 in concluding that the larvoe of American Lymexylids were the same 

 as those of European species, an opinion which some European writers 

 have interpreted as a fact. I agree with Mr. Schwarz in his opinion 



