NOTES FROM MY OLD DIARY. Ill 



the cause of its fall. The leaves were still green and 

 fresh, but on close inspection of the severed part, which 

 was nearly half an inch in diameter, I found it finely- 

 grooved, as if it had been sawed or filed by some sharp 

 toothed instrument. 



This was evidently the work of a Sawyer or Borer, 

 one of the numerous species of the destructive Bupestrice, 

 which in the larvae state are so injurious to our forest 

 trees. 



I sought diligently on the ground for the little work- 

 man, but while I had been examining the branch he had 

 hidden himself away in the grass, there to undergo the 

 last change to the perfect state of his kind as a small 

 beetle. 



Being desirous of obtaining some information concern- 

 ing the creature and its work, I turned to the report of 

 the "Field Naturalists' Society of Ottawa" for 1884 

 (page 49), and the following description satisfied me that 

 my sawyer must have been the larvae of a Twig-girdler: 



" Oncideres cingulatus. When the female desires to 

 deposit her eggs she makes punctures in the bark of 

 small twigs or branches. She then girdles the branch by 

 gnawing a ring round it, which kills the branch, and in 

 course of time it breaks off from the tree and falls to 

 the ground, and the larvae feed on the dead wood. The 

 beetle is greyish brown with a broad grey band. It is 

 commonly known as the 'Twig-girdler.'" 



In the present instance the leaf of the branch was still 



