THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



103 



GALLS AND THEIR ARCHITECTS - 2(1 ARTICLE. 



[CONTINUED rOOM PAGE SRVENTV-FOTIR. ] 



CraUs Made by Beetles. 



(Order, GoUovtem, Families Bupiestis, CurcuHo, eta.) 

 The Raspbf.kuy Gouty G\i.i.—(Ru/n poda- 

 gra, new species.) — lu the spring of the year, 

 when Raspberry and Blacliberry patches are 

 being overhauled and pruned, many of the canes 

 will often be noticed to swell out in particular 

 places, (like a limb infested by the gout,) for 

 the length of an inch or so, as shown in Figure 

 CS. Instead of being smooth and of a uni- 

 form color, like the healthy [Fig b> ] 

 parts, the swelled part of 

 the cane, wliich is a true 

 gall, always splits up lon- 

 gitudinally into a great 

 many short, rough, brown- 

 ish slits, and on inspecting 

 these gouty galls more care- 

 fully, numerous little ridges 

 will be observed, the gen- 

 eral direction of which is 

 round and round the axis 

 of the cane. If theobserver 

 takes his knife and cuts into 

 the ridges just now describ- 

 ed, he will find under each 

 of them the passage-way <it' 

 a minute borer, tilled wit 

 the brown excrement which 

 he has left behind him ; and 

 either in these passage-ways 

 or in the pith of the cane he 

 will often detect the insi- 

 dious little borer himself. 



(Fig. on, b.) This borer is e:„,o.s_Tl,at otthe caue, 



a small, thread-like larva, with biuwn scales. 

 of a creamy white color, with the front part of 

 its body much Hattened out horizontally, as in 

 the common Ilammcr-headed Borer of the 



[Kig, «).] 



<v,lovs-(a) brown; (6) whitish; (c) coppury-rHi nml black-. 



Apple-tree, the head being small and retractile, 

 with the jaws of a brown color, and the tail be- 

 ing furnished with two long, slender, blunt- 

 pointed, dark brown thorns or horns. When 



full-grown it ranges in size from one-half to 

 three-quarters of an inch. Like most other 

 borers, this one in the earlier stages of his 

 larval life burrows exclusively in the sapwood, 

 thereby very generally— owing to the spiral 

 course which he adojits— girdling and killing tho 

 cane tliat he inhabits. The same cane ofteii 

 contains several of them; and in that event the 

 shape of the gall which they produce often be- 

 comes very irregular. Towards the end of 

 April in South Illinois, but probably rather later 

 in more northerly latitudes, the larva penetrates 

 into the pith, so as to be more secure from his 

 insect foes, and there transforms into tlie pupa 

 state; and early in the summer, and sometimes 

 even as late as the foie part of July, the perfect 

 beetle emerges to the light of day. Although 

 we do not know, by direct observations, at 

 what particular time in the preceding year the 

 Kaspberry Gouty-galls originate, yet as the 

 beetles come out in June and July, we may 

 infer by analogy thi.t the sexes then immedi- 

 ately couple, and that the female shortly after-- 

 wards deposits her eggs in or on the young 

 canes, whence in the course of the same sum- 

 mer there must necessarily hatch out the tiny 

 young larvje that are the architects of these galls. 

 This beetle belongs to the same gi-oup (Bu- 

 prestis family) as the well-known Hammer- 

 headed Apple-tree borer, {Chrysobothrls femo- 

 /•rt^rt), and another species which is peculiarly 

 attached to the Cherrj-, (THceixa dicaricata). 

 Indeed all the species of this extensive and 

 beautiful group burrow in the wood of diflerent 

 trees, each having its peculiar vegetable favo- 

 rites ; and some of the largest, which in the beetle 

 state considerably exceed one inch in length 

 and arc gloriously resplendent with burnished 

 copper and gold, arc iu the larva state most 

 grievous pests among our Pines and Firs. The 

 genus to which our Raspberry liorer belongs 

 (Ar/7-ihtx) differs from most of the other genera 

 comprised in this Family by being of a very 

 slender elongate shape, and by containing no 

 species but such as are of quite a diminutiyc 

 size, the largest of them being less than half an 

 inch in length. Our species was originally des- 

 cribed in the year 1801 by the (ierman entomol- 

 ogist Fabricius, under the name of the Red- 

 necked Buprestis ( Afirilm ruJicolHs), in allusion 

 to the brilliant coppery color of its head and 

 thorax, (see Fig. 09, r) ; but— as very generally 

 happens in such cases— this author was entirely 

 ignorant of its larval history. At length in 

 1840, that excellent entomologist. Prof. S. S. 

 Haldeman, published to the world the fact of 

 its destroying the stalk of the Antwerp R.asp- 



