MISCELLANEOUS ECONOMIC INSECTS 
By CHARLES A. HART 
The Heart-wood Borer 
(Parandra brunnca Pabr.) 
Parandra brunnca is a shiny chestnut-brown, parallel-sided 
beetle (Fig. 2, 3) about live-eighths of an inch to three-quarters 
of an inch long and a quarter of an inch or less in width. It be- 
longs to a small family {Spondylidcc) closely related to the long- 
iiorn borers (Ceranibycidcc) and of similar habits. The larva is 
a wood borer about an inch long (Fig. 4), resembling the common 
round-headed borers except in the strong forward slope of the 
thorax and the sniall low-set head. 
A variety of observations made by the writer during a number 
of years seems to indicate that the heart-wood borer, altho gen- 
erally supposed to feed only on dead wood, is a much more im- 
portant and destructive pest of fruit and shade trees than the scanty 
references to it in economic literature would indicate, and the pub- 
lished and observed facts about the species are therefore here 
brought together. 
PUBLISHI:d DATA 
In the American Bntoniologist for January, 1880, Dr. C. V. 
Riley acknowledged, from Shelby Reed, of Scottsville, N. Y., sam- 
ples of a borer said to affect badly the roots of black ash trees in 
New York to such an extent that it was killing out these trees i4i 
parts of the state. The larva sent was new to Dr. Riley, and he 
asked for more specimens. In the number for August of the same 
year, a second letter from this correspondent is published, accom- 
panied by more material illustrating the injury, including the adult, 
which was identified by Riley as Parandra brunnca. Riley answers 
that its larViT are frequently found in dead or decaying wood of 
various trees, especially oak and beech, Imt are not known to attack 
healthy timber ; and that from the evidence at hand tlie decay of 
the ash trees was apparently not primarily caused by the borer. He 
added, however, that there could be no doubt that the death of the 
trees was accelerated by the working of these larv?e, and that the 
species might therefore be considered injurious, especially when it 
occurred in such numbers as in the present case. 
The observations of Mr. Reed, as detailed in his letter, agree 
closely with our observations, and are worth repeating. He says 
