INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE CHERRY. 



ATTACKING THE TRUNK, 



Ho. 104. The Divaricated Buprestis. 



Dicerca divaricata (Say). 



This is a beetle belonging to the family Buprestidse, most 

 of the members of which are readily distinguished by their 

 coppery or bronzed appearance. This species (see Fig. 207) 

 is from seven to nine tenths of an inch in length, 

 copper-colored, and sometimes brassy, and thickly 

 covered with little indentations. The thorax is 

 furrowed in the middle, and the wing-covers are 

 marked with numerous irregular impressed lines 

 and small, elevated, blackish spots. The wing- 

 cases taper much behind, and their long and narrow 

 tips are blunt-pointed, and spread apart a little, 

 the latter peculiarity having given to the insect its specific 

 name, divaricata. The beetles may be found sunning them- 

 selves upon the limbs of cherry and peach trees during June, 

 July, and August ; they are active creatures, running briskly 

 up and down the trunks of the trees in the sunshine. 



The female deposits her eggs on the cultivated and wild 

 cherry-trees, probably in crevices in the bark, and also on the 

 peach, and, when hatched, the young larva bores through the 

 bark and lives in and destroys the sap-wood underneath. It is a 

 flattened larva, with its anterior segments very much enlarged, 

 and closely resembles that of the flat-headed apple-tree borer, 

 No. 3, Fig. 4, but is larger. This insect is seldom very 

 troublesome ; should it require attention, the remedies recom- 

 mended for No. 3 will be equally applicable to this species. 



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