162 INSECT RAVAGES. 



sometimes along the pith of the small branches, until readj' for trans- 

 formation, when it comes to the surface and becomes a perfect insect.^ 



INSECT INJURIES TO THE HICKORY. 



An insect described hy Thomas Say, in 1S24, as the Scohjtus tetraspi- 

 7icsa, a beetle, formerly limited to the region known in early days as " Mis- 

 souri Territory," is reported as becomiug abiiudant, both in the East- 

 ern and Western States, and as particularly injurious to the hickory. 

 In a paper read before the New York Academy of Sciences, June 4, 

 1877, by Mr. Andrew S. i^'uller, the following facts are stated concern- 

 ing this insect : 



It is quite a minute beetle, a little over a fifth of an inch long ; color black ; elytra 

 brown; antennte pale rufous ; thorax punctured, black-brown ; elytra reddish-brown, 

 truncated with iupnnctured Btriaj, and an obsolete series of punctures ou tlie in- 

 terstitial lines; tip denticulated ; venter obliquely truncated, the posterior portion of 

 the body appearing to haA^ebeen cut oil' from the top of the elytra obliquely forward. 



The sexes appear late in summer, and after copulating the males soon disappear. 

 The female bores through the bark to the wood and lengthwise of the grain about an 

 inch, the furrow being partly in the sap-wood and partly in the bark, and is about a 

 sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Along each of the sides of this barrow she lays 

 from 20 to 40 eggs. The grubs on hatching begin to burrow across the grain, feeding 

 upon the yonug layer of fresh wood till cold weather, when they become doruuiut till 

 spring. Then digging outward to near the surface they pass through the pupa state, 

 and the perfect insect finally emerges. The insect begins its ravages near the top of 

 the tree, or on the upper pait of the stem, and gradually works downward from year 

 to year. No effectual remedy is known. 



THE BLACK SPRUCE AND ITS ENEMIES. 



Prof. Charles H. Peck, of the State Cabinet, at Albany, New York, in 

 an article read before the Albany Institute, INfay 4, 1875, on the black 

 spruce of the great northern forest of New York, mentions the occa- 

 sional occurrence of deep fissures, sometimes extending into the heart 



' From j)j table given in an article in theii'er»c des Eaux et Forvts for April, 1876, it ap- 

 pears that certain forests of oak in the south of trance, 10,4-25 hectares in extent, bad 

 •2,792 hectares, on nearly a quarter of the area, destroyed in 1876, leaving dead timber of 

 paratively small value to represent a iiromising and valuable phmtation. These in- 

 juries had recurred with some periodicity from time immemorial, the warmer regions 

 being noticed as more liable to suffer. 



Mr. Tr6gomaiu, the author of the article cited, notices that timber 20 to 25 years old 

 was more liable to attack than that from 10 to 20. As to period of return, this ap- 

 peared to depend upon circumstances that favored multiplication, and therefore to bo a 

 climatic question, rather than one incident to insect life. 



It was noticed that the preceding winter, in the case above mentioned, had been 

 unusually mild, with no snow and no prolonged frosts, a condition that was thought 

 to favor the multiplication of this insect. 



The writer of the article in the journal above cited, in speaking of the remedies 

 possible, and to some extent within the agency of nuin, says: 



'•According to my observation, the true effectual means of prevention, is the. preser- 

 vation of insectivorous birds. It is he re proper to notice the utility of the decree of 

 the prefect of Gard, dated December 18, 186(5, forbidding the taking or destroying of 

 the eggs and broods of any kind of birds not declared injurious. But unfortunately 

 this wise provision is but a dead letter; the field-guards, upon whom its execution 

 chiefly depended, appearing not to know or not to care about its observance, * • * 

 and agricultural societies would do well to offer prizes in money, in amount proportioned 

 'to the number of prosecutions had, for violations of this ordinance." 



The Eucayh/ptus glohidus in Anstralia, has been often attacked by coleopterous insects, 

 and in New South Wales, entire forests, covering thousands of acres, are complerely 

 dried up. This was attributed by some' to drouglit, by others to inundations, and by 

 others to a little fungus, which, in rainy seasons, appeared in abundance. Mr. William 

 Wools, of Parramatta, a botanist who had given especial attention to the subject, had 

 found no traces of this parasite, but had often seen the young eucalyptus trees infested 

 with the Coccus and Clados]porium.—{Sijdnci/ Mornivg Herald.) 



