54 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



have found burrows about 30 feet from the ground, but most of them occur 

 in the trunk or near the base of the larger limbs. The latter seems to be a 

 favorite place for the deposition of eggs. The young borer passes the win- 

 ter in a rather shallow excavation in the sapwood, the following spring 

 renewing operations with increased vigor. The boring of the second season 

 is largely just under the bark, the burrows being about ^ inch in width and 

 i^ inch in depth, and running in almost any direction, though usually longi- 

 tudinally or obliquely upward and partly around the tree. Sometime during 

 its life, probably in the second fall when the borer is about 16 months old, 

 a deep burrow is made, usually penetrating about 4 inches in an upward, 

 oblique direction toward the heart of the tree and then 

 running some distance parallel with the grain of the wood, 

 as represented in figure 4, which was drawn from a photo- 

 graph. The larva transforms to a pupa and from that to a 

 beetle at the end of this deep burrow, the beautiful adult 

 emerging from the trunk through an oval hole [pi. 2, fig. 5] 

 about 3/g, by S/a inch in diameter. 



The only natural enemies observed preying on this 

 insect are woodpeckers. Dr Packard records having seen 

 them at work. Mr A. H. Kirkland has seen the hairy 

 woodpecker, the downy woodpecker and the flicker feeding 

 on white larvae taken from beneath the bark of infested 

 trees. 



Associated insects. As previously pointed out, the 

 sugar maple borer attacks trees in their prime. It is well 

 known to students of nature that an enfeebled plant invites 

 insect injury by presenting favorable conditions for their multiplication. 

 Trees suffering to any extent from the attack of the sugar maple borer are 

 usually infested with the pigeon tremex, Tremex columba Linn., a 

 species which assists materially in the destruction begun by the beetle and 

 which is noticed on page 59. 



Remedies. Very badly infested trees should be cut and burned before 



vhich the grub tr^ 

 orms to the beetle 



