OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



157 



of the body from side to side, and lasts sometimes but two or three 

 minutes, sometimes more than ten.* When the operation is accom- 

 plished to her satisfaction, 

 she clutches with her front 

 feet the stem to be used, and 

 anchors the middle and hind- 

 most feet for the most part 

 upon contiguous leaves or 

 branches, and often quite 

 wide apart. Then, if she has 

 her head in an upward direc- 

 tion (for it seems to be imma- 

 terial to her whether the eggs 

 are placed from below up or 

 vice versa)^ she begins at the 

 lower end of the roughened 

 portion of the twig, and, after 

 fretting it anew with her jaws 

 MicKocENTKusRKTixERvis:— FemuieovipositiiiK. and measuring and feeling it 

 over again and again with her palpi, as if to assure herself that all is 

 as it should be, she slowly — with much apparent effort, and not with- 

 out letting it partly fall several times — curls the abdomen under until 

 the lower edge of the curved ovipositor is brought between the jaws 

 and palpi, by which it is grasped and guided to the right position. It is 

 then worked slightly up and down for from four to six minutes — all the 

 timeguidedby the jaws — while a shiny viscid fluid is given out appar- 

 ently from the ovipositor. Finally, after a few seconds rest or suspen- 

 sion of this work, the egg gradually rises, and, as it passes between the 

 ovipositor, turns so that the one end appears almost simultaneously, from 

 between the convex edge, with the other from the lower tip, of the 

 blades. The egg adheres to the roughened bark in an oblique posi- 

 tion. It is at first almost black and highly varnished, but it acquires 

 its normal gray color within eight or ten hours. After the egg is 

 placed the abdomen is straightened out and the insect rests for a few 

 moments, soon, however, to resume her eftbrts and repeat the like per- 

 formance, in every particular, except that the second egg is placed on 

 the opposite side of the twig and a little above the first one. The 

 third egg is pushed in between the top of the first one and the twig, the 

 fourth between the top of the second, and so on, one each side, alter- 

 nately. Thus these eggs are not laid, as we might naturally imply, 



•HaiTis thought tliiit the bark wa.s tirst roughened and sluived oil' by the ovipositor; wliile Mr. 

 WiiLsh, writing to the Prairie Farmer Cas already <iuoted, y. 154) states that " portions of bark between 

 and miller the eggs wliich are not concealed by the cement are neither shaved otl' nor roughened;" which 

 is true in degiee V)ut conveys a false impression, as the roughened and gnaw ed paits are eti'ec-tually cov- 

 ered liy the cement. 



