INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE GRAPE 513 



its burrow soon after the dead section drops, first filling the burrow 

 with little pellets of fibers. Two weeks later the adult beetle 

 emerges, appearing during late summer. The whole life cycle 

 thus requires sixt}--five to seventy days. The beetles hibernate 

 over winter. 



Control. The injured canes are quite conspicuous in early 

 summer and by cutting them off a few inches below the egg scars 

 the eggs and larva? may be removed and destroyed. Brooks 

 is of the opinion that the beetles will be largely destroyed in vine- 

 yards thoroughly sprayed with arsenicals for other grape insects. 



The Grape Cane-borer * 



During the spring young grape shoots sometimes suddenly break 

 off or droop and die, and if examined a small hole will be found just 

 above the base of the withered shoot, with a burrow leading 

 from it into the main stem. In this burrow will be found a small 

 brown beetle, a half inch long (Fig. 371, a), which is the cause 

 of the injury. It has been sometimes called the apple twig-borer 

 on account of the similar injury which it does to apple twigs, 

 and it also attacks pear, peach, plum, forest and shade trees and 

 ornamental shrubs, but it is particularly destructive to the grape. 

 Its injury is most noticed in winter and early spring, and fre- 

 quently results in killing all the new growth and sometimes 

 the entire vine. Injury has been most severe in the States border- 

 ing the Mississippi from Iowa southward, where it is one of the 

 most serious insect pests of the vine, and though the beetle occurs 

 eastward to the coast it rarely does much damage farther east. 



" It breeds in dying wood, such as large prunings, diseased 

 canes, and also in dying or drying wood of most shade and fruit 

 trees. It has also been found by the writer [Marlatt] breeding 

 very abundantly in roots of uprooted maples and in diseased 

 tamarisk stems. In old, dry wood it will not breed, so far as 

 known, nor in vigorous live growth, but seems to need the dying 



* Amphicerus bicaudatus Say. Family Ptinidae. See C. L. Marlatt, 

 Farmers' Bulletin 70, U. S. Dept. Agr. 



