108 COLEOPTERA. 



of companions and food. In the daytime it keeps at rest 

 among the leaves of the plants which it devours. 



The trees and shrubs principally attacked by this borer 

 are the apple-tree, the quince, mountain ash, hawthorn and 

 other thorn bushes, the June-berry or shad-bush, and other 

 kinds of Amelanchier and Aronia. Our native thorns and 

 Aronias are its natural food ; for I have discovered the larvae 

 in the stems of these shrubs, and have repeatedly found the 

 beetles upon them, eating the leaves, in June and July. It is 

 in these months that the eggs are deposited, being laid upon 

 the bark near the root, during the night. The larvae hatched 

 therefrom are fleshy whitish grubs, nearly cylindrical, and 

 tapering a little from the first ring to the end of the body. 

 (Plate II. Fig. 17.) The head is small, horny, and brown ; 

 the first ring is much larger than the others, the next two are 

 very short, and, with the first, are covered with punctures 

 and very minute hairs ; the following rings, to the tenth 

 inclusive, are each furnished, on the upper and under side, 

 with two fleshy warts situated close together, and destitute 

 of the little rasp-like teeth, that are usually found on the 

 grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles ; the eleventh and twelfth 

 rings are very short ; no appearance of legs can be seen, 

 even with a magnifying glass of high power. 



The grub, with its strong jaws, cuts a cylindrical passage 

 through the bark, and pushes its castings backwards out of 

 the hole from time to time, while it bores upwards into the 

 wood. The larva state continues two or three years, during 

 which the borer will be found to have penetrated eight or ten 

 inches upwards in the trunk of the tree, its burrow at the 

 end approaching to, and being covered only by, the bark. 

 Here its transformation takes place. The pupa does not 

 differ much from other pupae of beetles ; but it has a trans- 

 verse row of minute prickles on each of the rings of the 

 back, and several at the tip of the abdomen. These prob- 

 ably assist the insect in its movements, when casting off its 

 pupa-skin. The final change occurs about the first of June, 



