46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



observations of Dr Fitch, but it would seem very probable that 

 oviposition may occur much later, as beetles are abroad till 

 into August. The attack usually begins at the base of the tree. 

 The young grub works its way under the bark and begins feed- 

 ing on the tissues and making a serpentine burrow. The boring 

 increases in size with the growth of the larva [pi. 3, fig. i], and 

 in the course of time the tree may be completely girdled and 

 then it must soon die. Dr Packard, writing in 1870, calls atten- 

 tion to finding three sizes of larvae; and we found it compara- 

 tively easy to separate those taken from a badly infested piece of 

 limb in a similar manner. But in our breeding from such infested 

 bark all larvae transformed the same season. We have also 

 found it working in dead as well as living tissues and have proved 

 its ability to complete its transformations in the former. 



Food plants. This insect appears to infest the white elm 

 almost exclusively, though Dr Fitch records it as breeding in 

 the slippery elm. We have seen no indications of its attacking 

 the English or Scotch elms, so common in Albany. There is a 

 record of this species having been reared from maple, but it 

 would seem that the infestation must have been abnormal or 

 else the record was founded on an erroneous observation. 



Description. Black, sometimes fawn color, densely covered 

 with a gray pubescence [pi. 3, fig. 3]. Thorax: twin black spots 

 below lateral orange red bands which are joined together at the 

 base and reach to the head, where each divides and encircles 

 an eye ; sometimes ornamented with two black spots on 

 each side of median line. Elytra: submarginal ridge reaching 

 from the humeral angle to near the apex, giving them an angu- 

 lated appearance; ornamented by a more or less distinct sub- 

 marginal, orange red band, from which arise three crossbars of 

 the same color, the one nearest the base of the elytra nearly 

 transverse, except at the tip, where it is sometimes oblique, it 

 rarely reaches to the suture and has a black spot on either side 

 where it joins the submarginal -band; the middle band oblique 

 and usually joined at suture; the apical one also oblique, with a 

 black spot at its posterior side, usually reaches the suture and 



