﻿72 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



Our oak trees die from year to year. Inquire the cause : Tiie 

 answer is: "O, they cannot stand the influences of civilization!" 

 Search for it yourself and you will find that Chrysobothris has had 

 more or less to do with their death. The townsman prides himself on 

 the thrifty growth of his soft maples or sycamore trees that are to 

 give him shade from the midsummer sun, adorn his lot or line the 

 front of his city residence. After a thrifty growth of two, three or 

 more years, one of the trees suddenly dies, and others soon follow. 

 The cause is discussed: Drouth, packed soil, poor nourishment and 

 a dozen seemingly plausible reasons are conjured up, and ashes, or 

 some other mineral or vegetable substances are placed around the 

 butt in the vain effort to save the remaining trees. Pull off the bark, 

 however, and the real cause is readily discerned, for the surface of 

 the hard wood is literally covered with broad, shallow channels packed 

 with sawdust like casting— channels which Chrysobothris, unseen and 

 unheard, has been making, perchance, since the tree was first set out. 

 Mountain Ash, Linden, Box-elder, Beech, Plum, Pear, Cherry and 

 Peach alike succumb to its attacks,* while the Apple is so subject to 

 its injuries that no man who does not understand this enemy and is 

 not willing to give some little time to mastering it, can hope to suc- 

 ceed in growing apple trees in Missouri; and in reality the time and 

 money spent in planting young apple orchards, especially in the west- 

 ern part of the State, is generally wasted for want of the necessary 

 precautions against this insect. 



ITS NATURAL HISTORY. 



The natural history of this borer is thus briefly told : The beetle, 

 known as the Thick-legged Buprestian, is very variable in size (ray 

 figure at d representing a large one), and has been described under a 

 number of different names. It is greenish-black or bronze-colored, 

 with metallic reflections and the underside more coppery or brassy. 

 The more characteristic features are two irregular, impressed, trans- 

 verse marks across each wing-cover, dividing them into about three 

 equal lengths. This beetle, like all the species of the family ( Dupres- 

 tidce) to which it belongs, is diurnal in habit, and may frequently be 

 found basking in the sun on the trunks of those trees which it more 

 particularly frequents. It begins to appear during the latter part of 

 May and is found all through the Summer months. The eggs, which 



♦I liave leaved the beetle from Oak, Apple, Mountain Ash, Box-elder, Peach and Pear, and 

 found the lanie. Judged to be the same after critical comparison, in the other trees mentioned. 



