The Borer of the Linden-tree. 331 



labors, unnoticed and unsuspected, till the work of destruc- 

 tion is well nigh finished. 



Some of these wood-eating insects are transformed to 

 beetles, having long and tapering antennse, or horns, and 

 hard wing-covers. Such, when arrived at maturity, are 

 the borers of the apple tree, and the gray borers of the 

 poplar. 



Similar to these, in form, is a long- horned beetle, which 

 was described, in the year 1824, by Mr. Thomas Say, in 

 the Appendix to Keating's Narrative of Major Long's sec- 

 ond expedition, under the name of Saperda vestita. This 

 insect measures from six to eight tenths of an inch in 

 length ; it is entirely covered with a short and close green- 

 ish yellow down or nap, and has two or three small black 

 dots near the middle of each wing-cover. Mr. Say discov- 

 ered it near the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, and 

 states that it is also sometimes found in Pennsylvania. It 

 has been known to inhabit Massachusetts for many years. 

 but hitherto has been rarely seen, until this summer, during 

 which several specimens have been taken in Cambridge, 

 upon the European lindens, from the trunks and branches 

 of which they had just come forth. A knowledge of the 

 habits of this insect might have led to its more frequent 

 discovery. One of the lindens, above named, is a noble 

 and venerable tree, probably above two hundred years old, 

 with a trunk measuring eight feet and five inches in cir- 

 cumference three feet from the ground. A strip of the bark, 

 two feet wide at the bottom, and extending to the top of 

 the trunk, has been destroyed, and the exposed surface of 

 the wood is pierced and grooved with countless numbers of 

 holes, wherein the borers have been bred, and whence 

 swarms of the beetles have issued in past times. Some of 

 the large limbs and a portion of the top of the tree have 

 fallen, apparently in consequence of the ravages of these 

 insects; and it is a matter of surprise tliat this fine linden 

 should have withstood and outlived the continued attacks 

 of such a host of miners and sappers. 



The lindens of Philadelphia have suffered much more 

 severely from these borers. Dr. Paul Swift, in some letters 

 to the writer, states, that "the trees in Washington and 

 Independence Squares were first observed to have been at- 

 tacked about seven years ago. Within two years it has 



