34 



of sap gathering. In both cases cut all badly infested and dying 

 trees and burn them before midsummer, thus destroying the insects 

 they contain. 



The Oak Pruner.* 



From an entomological stand-point the summer of 181)6 was 



marked by an unusual abundance of the oak pruner in eastern and 



central Massachusetts. The red oak suffered most severel}^, but 



the white and scarlet oaks were not wholly exempt from the rav- 



^fflSSa 



Fig. 3. The Oak Primer. ((, larva; ?*, side view of same; e, pupa. (From P.icbard.) 



ages of this beetle, while in some cases the sugar and red maples 

 and hickories were attacked either by this insect or by one of iden- 

 tical habits. The presence of the borer is shown by the falling of 

 living branches which have been severed from the tree by a clean 

 cut. By splitting the severed end of a fallen branch the insect 

 causing the damage may be readily found, — a slender white or 

 yellowish- white grub with black mouth parts. 



Life History. 

 The eggs are said to be laid by the parent beetle in early sum- 

 mer upon the young growing lateral twigs, at a distance varying 

 from a few inches to a foot or more from the main 

 branch. Probably but a single egg is laid on each 

 lateral twig. Upon the hatching of the egg the j^oung 

 grub or larva burrows downward in the twig, leaving 

 but a thin shell of bark and wood. When the branch 

 is reached a burrow is made beneath the bark for a 

 short distance toward the trunk, and the branch is 

 nearly cut off by the larva. The latter then retreats into its bur- 

 row, plugs it with chips and feeds within the branch. Winds soon 

 break the weakened branch from the tree, and in the fallen branches 

 the larvae feed until fall, when the majority transform into pupre 

 from which the mature beetles emerge the following spring. 



Elaj)hidion villosum Fabr. 



t Drawn by J. H. Emerton. 



