43 
long, thick-bodied; with a roughened and punctured surface, and a 
stout curved beak projecting downward from the head. The gen- 
eral color is dark sooty brown, more or less specked and spotted 
Fig. 46. Poplar and Willow Borer, Crypto- 
rhynchus lapathi, larva. About i times natural 
size. 
Fig. 45. Injury by Poplar and Wil- 
low Borer, C'ryptorhynckus lajjiitfti. 
with gray, and there is a very conspicuous large patch of light gray 
on the hinder end ot the wing-covers, contrasting strongly with the 
adjacent colors. The sides of the prothorax are gray, and there is 
a pair of rather definite oblique gray marks just behind the front 
outer angle of each wing-cover. The beetle is slow and lumbering 
in its movements, and when disturbed drops to the ground like a 
curculio, without attempting to fly. It feeds upon the cambium 
layer of the younger branches, which it reaches by puncturing the 
bark with its snout. It lays its eggs in the older bark, mainly of 
branches from two to four years old. This the female does by 
first eating downward into the bark by means of the jaws at the 
tip of her snout, taking half an hour or more to hollow out a cav- 
ity in which the egg is concealed. She then turns end for end, and 
leaves an egg in the chamber thus made, and presently moves away 
to repeat the process at another point. 
The young hatch mainly in August and September, penetrate at 
once to the cambium laver, and hibernate there while most of them 
are still very small. The following spring they continue to work in 
the cambium until nearly ready for pupation, when they enter older 
wood. 
