INSECT NOTKS. 361 



earth. I have found them when they have bored nearly the 

 whole length of the cane." 



The beetles pass the pupal stage at the roots of the cane and 

 emerge m the spring. The beetle has a narrow black body 

 about long, the thorax is yellow, with 2 small black spots 

 sometimes absent, while in some specimens there is an addi- 

 tional black spot at the posterior margin of the prothorax. 



Among the accounts of this insect might be mentioned that 

 of F. M. Webster * who observed it boring in apple and in 

 witchhazel and that of O. Lugger."^* 



Osmoderma scabra Beauv. 



The Rough Flower Beetle. Lot 399. In an old orchard 

 where the apple trees were being cut a considerable number of 

 the white grubs of this beetle were found. About 10 of these 

 were kept the winter of 1907-08 in the laboratory living in a 

 section of decaying apple trunk to which no other attention was 

 given than soaking it up now and then. Two of the beetles 

 emerged during the winter and to the others were added about 

 20 more grubs of various sizes during the summer of 1908. 

 These lived in confinement with very little care and were kept 

 until the edible portion of the trunk had been disposed of. 



Although these grubs do not occur in healthy trees, they some- 

 times cause considerable injury by consuming the wood of old 

 trees and inducing more rapid decay. 



Figure 56 pictures the cell which this grub constructs by 

 cementing together "sawdust" inside which cocoon it passes its 

 pupal stage and from which it emerges in the winged or beetle 

 stage. 



Figures 55 and 57 give the grub and beetle. 



Dermestes vulpinus Fab. Lots 227 and 400. 

 Two infestations of this Dermestid were reported. They 

 were breeding in ''tankage," that is refuse from a rendering 

 place, to be used as a fertilizer. They were also at work in 

 curd from dried buttermilk. The buttermilk is evaporated, the 

 curd pressed, dried, ground, and put into two bushel sacks to 

 be used for sizing paper. It was in these sacks that the beetles 



* 1898. Bulletin No. 96. Ohio Agricl. Exp. Station. 

 ** 1899. Fifth Annual Report of the Entomologist of the Experi- 

 ment Station of the Univ. of Minn. 



