1399 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 87 



living larva of Dinapate, full-grown and apparently forming 

 its pupa cell or preparing to do so. After several hours' 

 work we secured four specimens only one of which could be 

 taken out uninjured, the other three specimens being more 

 or less tut to pieces or crushed between the tough fibres. All 

 these larvse were thoroughly dormant and very flaccid ; evi- 

 dently they hiul eaten nothing for some months. 



I feel sure that they are more than one year and probably 

 more than two years old, but no doubt they would have issued 

 by July or August of this year. All the larvsie in this trunk 

 appear to lie not deeper than one or two inches beneath the 

 surface of the wood. It is possible however, that they may 

 not issue until next year, and for this reason I hesitate to have 

 the tree cut down. The fibres of the wood are still moist and 

 very light in color showing very slight fermentation except 

 where the juvenile galleries of a year or two ago have pene- 

 trated. There are no young larvae, and evidently all are of 

 the same age and nearly or quite adult, and there are no exit 

 holes in the tree. There may be 50 to 100 larvie in the trunk, 

 but of course this is only a surmise. Dr. Murray promises to 

 watch the tree during the summer and will try to secure 

 specimens of the beetle as they emerge. 



I feel quite certain now that there are comparatively few 

 broods of Dlnapate existing in this region, and unless it exists 

 also in Baja California or on the southern slope of the San Ber- 

 nardino range, any year may witness its complete extinction ; 

 because unless the females, in imago, feed upon and kill the 

 buds of living palms in which they then oviposit, the number 

 of trees in fit condition to rear the young is exceedingly lim- 

 ited. I have in fact seen but this one tree in any of the canons 

 I have visited. It is absolutely certain that only the Washing- 

 tonia palm is capable of supporting the large broods of this 

 gigantic borer, and if the females should fail to find a suitable 

 tree in any year, they must inevitably perish without issue. 

 When I cxjnsider the limited number of these trees in existence 

 in a wild state, and the slender chance the female beetle must 

 have of finding a dying tree in the right condition and at the 

 right time, I am more than ever inclined to suspect that the 

 beetles deliberately kill the tree in which they oviposit. If 

 they killed the tree merely by feeding as adults upon the buds, 



