AMERICAN HOMK GARDEN. 

 Fig. 127. 



267 



a. Larva. 



b. Chrysobothris (Buprestis) femora ta, or 



thick-legged snapping beetle. 

 Infesting apple, quince, and some forest 



Borer and parent bug. 



The parent beetles of the above are of very dissimilar ap- 

 pearance, though the worms are alike in habit. 



The Saperda is about three fourths of an inch long, of a light 

 butternut-brown color, and most easily recognized by its two 

 rather broad white stripes extending the whole length of the 

 insect. It flies chiefly at night. 



The Chrysobothris, or snapper, is described by Fitch as " an 

 oblong, brassy-blackish snapping beetle, nearly half an inch 

 long, its back under the wings brilliant bluish green." It is 

 most active at midday. 



Both deposit their eggs in June or July upon the bark, gen- 

 erally near the ground, and the worms, when hatched, eat their 

 way first to the inner bark, where they may be found in Au- 

 gust or September, of the size of a wheat-kernel. Eating 

 downward, they reach the sap-wood, which, with the inner bark, 

 they destroy extensively. They finally enter the solid wood, 

 and eat their way upward, living in the tree some two years. 

 When the period of their change approaches, they make their 

 way toward the outer surface, forming their chrysalides within 

 the bark of the tree, from which the beetles make their escape 

 in early summer by eating through. 



Borer, Fig. 126 a, larva of the Saperda, is a soft, full, fleshy, 

 yellowish-white, cylindrical worm, about an inch long, of the 

 diameter of a slout straw, or a little larger, of even thickness 

 throughout, or scarcely at all tapering. It has a brown nead 

 and black jaws, and is marked into thirteen joints or segments. 

 Upon these, both above and beneath, is a row of obscure, wart- 

 like protuberances, which, with the spiracles or breathing-holes 



