REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST I909 99 



side, until eventually half of the tree may succumb to the in- 

 jury. This pest, besides breeding in the trunk as described, 

 also injures the branches, not infrequently causing the death 

 of one or two limbs or possibly of all those on one side of the 

 tree. 



Afifected trees should first have all the dead wood removed 

 so far as possible, taking care to protect the cut surfaces with 

 applications of tar or any good roofing paint. Next, carefully 

 examine the trees for signs of borers, digging out the pests if 

 possible, since the pernicious grubs if left to themselves, are 

 likely to cause much more injury than would result from the 

 judicious use of the knife. Wounds of this character should 

 be carefully protected with tar or paint. Each fall the trees 

 should be closely examined for irregular, discolored patches 

 about the size of a nickel, caused by the sap oozing from the 

 slitlike oviposition scars. It is comparatively easy to dig out 

 the young grubs. Their early destruction is much more pref- 

 erable to extended excavations in search of the nearly full-grown 

 borer. 



European elm case bearer (Coleophora limosipen- 

 nella Dup.). The peculiar, somewhat flattened cases of this 

 species were first brought to the writer's attention in 1901. It 

 is a European form which evidently became established in 

 this country at about that period and is now generally dis- 

 tributed in the vicinity of New York city. Complaints of in- 

 jury, accompanied by infested leaves, were received from Oak- 

 dale, N. Y. The writer observed it at Oyster Bay in 1906, at 

 which time its operations approached m seriousness those of 

 the much better known elm leaf beetle. The general injury 

 by these two forms is somewhat similar, though easily dis- 

 tinguished. The areas mined by the case bearers are distinctly 

 rectangular and bounded on either side, as a rule, by a parallel 

 vein and extending rather evenly for some distance from the 

 central feeding hole, the latter easily seen when looking up- 

 ward toward a bright sky. The eroded, semitransparent, skel- 

 etonized areas produced by elm leaf beetle larvae are at once 

 distinguished by their greater irregularity, the lack of the cen- 

 tral feeding orifice and the fact that there is no mining of the 

 foliage. This more recently introduced pest should be watched 

 closely and can be controlled by early and thorough spraying 

 with an arsenical i>oison, making the application at the lime the 

 leaves begin to appear. 



