THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



103 



GALLS AND THEIR ARCHITECTS — 2d ARTICLE. 



[CONTINUED PCOM I'AOE BRVR^TY-FOITR- ] 



(Jails Made liy Beetles. 

 (Oi-ilpr, Cliff on/era , Families Bnpiwti'x. Cuindio, etc.) 

 The Kaspuehuy Gouty G\\A.—{Rrihi jtoda- 

 gra, new specie.?.)— I'l I'he spring of the year, 

 when Raspbcn-y and Blackberry patche.s are 

 being overhanled and prnned, many of the canes 

 will often be noticed to swell ont in particular 

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

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

 08. Instead of being smooth and of a uni- 

 form color, like the healthy 

 parl.s, the swelled part of 

 the cane, which 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 the observer 

 takes his knife and cuts into 

 the ridges just now describ- 

 ed, lie will find under each 

 of them the passage-way of 

 a minute borer, filled witli 

 the brown excrement which 

 he has left behind him; and 

 either in these passage-ways 

 ov- in the pith of the cane he 

 will often detect the insi- 

 dious little borer himself. 

 (Fig. 69, h.) This borer is 

 a small, thread-like larva, witiuni.wn scales. 

 of a creamy white color, with the front part of 

 its body much flattened out horizontally, as in 

 tlic common Hammer-headed llorer of the 

 ^ [Fig, .;!!.] 



' ('olnrs— That of the cane, 



Cnloi-s— {«) hi-<)wn; (b) whitish; (f) cii|.|Mn-ml nml Hack. 



Apple-tree, the head being small and retractile, 

 witli the Jaws of a brown color, and the tail be- 

 ing furnished with two long, slender, bluut- 

 pointod, dark brown thorns or horns. "When 



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

 three-(iuarters 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 adopts — girdling and killing the 

 cane that he inhabits. The same cane often 

 contains several of them; and in that event (he 

 shape of the gall which they produce often be- 

 c6mcs 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 the pupa 

 state; and early in the summer, and sometimes 

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

 beetle emerges to the light of day. Although 

 we do not know, by direct observations, at 

 what parlicular lime in the preceding year the 

 Raspberry Gouty-giills originate, yet as the 

 beetles come out in June and July, we may 

 infer by analogy tlmt the sexes then immedi- 

 ately couple, and that the female shortly after- 

 wards deposits her eggs in or on tiie young 

 canes, whence in the course of the same sum- 

 mer there must necessarily hatch out the tiny 

 young larvfe that are (he architects of tlicse galls. 

 This beetle belongs to the same group {Bu- 

 jirestis family) as the well-known Hammer- 

 headed Apple-tree borer, {Chrysoholhris femo- 

 m/rt), and another species which is peculiarly 

 attached to the Cherry, {Dicerca (Uvaricatd) . 

 Indeed all the species of this extensive and 

 beautiful group burrow in the wood of diflerent 

 trees, eacli having its peculiar vegetable favo- 

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

 state considerably exceed one inch in length 

 and are gloriously resplendent with burnished 

 copper and gold, are in the larva state most 

 grievous pests among our Pines and Firs. The 

 genus to which our Raspberry Borer belongs 

 lAf/i-iliix) 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 diminutive 

 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 (Jerman entomol- 

 ogist Fabricius, under the name of the Red- 

 necked Bnprestis ( A(irllu^ ruflrolli>i) , in allusion 

 to the brilliant coppery color of its head and 

 thorax, (see Fig. ti!), <■) ; but-as very generally 

 liappcns in such cases— this autlior was entirely 

 ignorant of its larval history. At length in 

 184Ci, that excellent entomologist. Prof. S. S. 

 Haldeman, published to the world the fact of 

 its destroying the stalk of the Antwerp Rasp- 



