THE CLIMAX FOREST AND ITS PREDECESSOR 227 



Pyramidula alternata is common as are also P. perspectiva, 

 Omphalifia fuliginosa, Zonitoides arboreus, and Circinaria concava. 

 Millipedes and centipedes are almost invariably present. The 

 carpenter ant is beginning to work, the female being found early 

 in the spring, starting the colonies in small hollows excavated 

 in the decaying wood. The paper wasp frequently winters 

 under such loose bark. Certain spiders, such as the w^olf spider 

 and the grass spider, 

 winter in such locali- 

 ties and deposit their 

 egg sacks here. 



When the bark 

 becomes quite loose 

 on standing timber, 

 the brown bat hangs 

 up under its protec- 

 tion by day. But 

 the predatory and 

 wood-boring beetles 

 make up the bulk of 

 the population. The 

 heartwood borer, 

 Parandra brunea 

 (Fig. 314), is fre- 

 quently present, working where decay is just beginning. This is 

 a shiny, chestnut brown beetle about .75 of an inch long and a 

 third as wide. The nearly cyhndrical larva is i inch long, and is 

 recognized by the sharply sloping thorax and the small head. 

 Eupsalis minuta is quite common under bark of oaks, even in early 

 stages of decay (Fig. 315). The horned passalus, a good-sized 

 black beetle with a horn on the thorax, may be present, though it 

 is more common in the fallen logs w^hen decay has progressed 

 somewhat more. Its very large white four-legged larva is not 

 likely to be mistaken for anything else (Fig. 294). Click beetles 

 are almost always present. Xylopimis saperdioides, Nytrobatcs 



Fig. 314. — Heartwood borer, Parandra brunea, and 

 a, its larva; b, side view of head end (Bulletin United 

 States Department of Entomology). 



