70 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



cause. They found it to be the gmb of one of the lepidop- 

 tera insects. Whenever any bough of pine or fir was broken, 

 this grub was found within it, which it had often hollowed 

 out even to the bark. From the report of the naturalists and 

 foresters it was demonstrated that the extraordinary increase 

 of this insect was owing to the entire disappearance of sev- 

 eral species of woodpeckers and tomtits or chickadees, from 

 some unknown cause. The grub that did all this mischief 

 was transformed into a moth of remarkable size and beauty. 



The larvas which are most injurious to our fruit trees are 

 the offspring of a small beetle of the genus Biiprestis. Such 

 are the common borers, which no birds but the woodpeckers 

 can drag out from their retreats. The most destructive of 

 these insects are found in tropical climes, and here the wood- 

 peckers are proportionally numerous. The larvae of some 

 of these species live many years before they become perfect 

 insects. They have been known to issue out of the wood 

 of furniture that has been brought from India, several years 

 after its arrival. During all the period from the time the 

 Avood was cut from the forest, until the perfect insect emerged 

 from it, the grub must have lived there. 



The insects of this tribe are the greatest known enemies 

 to the forest, in their grub state consuming the wood, and in 

 their perfect state the foliage of the trees. But it is in their 

 grub state that they commit the greatest ravages. Timber 

 of the hardest kinds is often bored in all directions by them, 

 and the trees of a whole tract of country sometimes destroyed. 

 It is said that the united efforts of gardeners and nurse- 

 rymen could never avail as much as the industry of a few 

 woodpeckers in eradicating these vermin. 



The woodpeckers are exceedingly hardy. They live 

 mostly in the forest, are shy in their habits, and are seldom 

 migratory. The larvas they feed upon are as abundant in 

 winter as in summer. Hence the operations of these birds 

 are incessant, and confined to no particular season. They are 

 likewise indefatigable devourers of emmets, drawing them out 

 of the crevices of wood and earth by means of their long 

 flexible tongues. They seem to detect the lurking place of 



