NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 85 



Early and thorough spraying or dusting with a poison should 

 control this insect on ornamentals. It is advisable to make the 

 application to the under side of the foliage, because the grubs feed 

 only upon the lower surface of the leaf. 



Dogwood twig borer (Oberea tripunctata Swed.). 

 The work of a borer provisionally identified as the above-named 

 species was received from R. E. Horsey, Foreman, Highland Park, 

 Rochester, under date of September 6, 192 1, accompanied by the 

 statement that they were killing young twigs in the azalea collec- 

 tion, the affected branches being indicated by the dried-up leaves. 

 The yellowish green borer confines its operations at first to the 

 smaller twigs and then works downward in the shrub. One borer, 

 presumably the same, was also found in rhododendron. 



An examination of the material transmitted with the above state- 

 ment showed that twigs, one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in 

 diameter, were inhabited by an active, yellowish larva, which lives 

 in tunnels some 4 inches long and about one-tenth of an inch in 

 diameter. Here and there along the infested twigs, circular orifices 

 about one-twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter were to be found, 

 and hanging from these there were frequently yellowish strings of 

 borings. The yellowish legless grubs have a length of about three- 

 fourths of an inch and, judging from the borings ejected, are active 

 and very efficient workers. 



There was serious injury to elm twigs in northern Illinois by a 

 twig girdler described by Chittenden 1 as Oberea u 1 m i c \ a 

 and subsequently a more general account 2 of this same insect as 

 an elm pest, was given by Doctor Forbes. 



There is a brief note 3 by Dr J. J. Davis, which records this 

 insect as infesting much of the dogwood plantings in the park sys- 

 tem of Chicago, though he found some 44 per cent of the borers 

 infested by an ichneumonid parasite. 



A somewhat full account * of the insect and its work in dogwood 

 was given the following year by Doctor Forbes. 



The varied food habits of this insect are illustrated by the record 5 

 of its presence in large numbers from various parts of New Bruns- 

 wick, where it is reported by Swaine as an apple insect. 



* Webster, F. M. 111. State Lab. Nat. Hist. Bui. 7:1-13. 1904. 

 2 24th 111. Rep't, p. 118-34. 1908. 

 1 Econ. Ent. Jour., 3:184. 1910. 



4 1911, 111. Agr. Expt. Sta. Bui. 151, p. 506-9; also 26th 111. Rep't, p. 44-47. 

 1911 

 c 42d Rep't, Ent. Soc. Ont., p. 72. 1912. 



