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fires. In that State forests are not in as large areas as in immy other 

 places, but in comparatively small blocks. Most of the fires are 

 caused by sparks from the railroads, and after that the insects come in 

 and complete the work done by the fires. Mr. Smith's point was not 

 that Mr. Hopkins had been incorrect in his statement, but that what 

 he said was contrary to his own observations in other localities. How- 

 ever, the facts may be different under different conditions. There was 

 one insect in hickory {Af/r/7ns sp.) that he had found cutting off the 

 branches. It would work up and down for a little time under the 

 bark, and would then start around the branch and make galleries to the 

 center, until it had actually cut it off. Only recently he had found a 

 number of specimens that had been cut off in this way. 



Mr. Hopkins stated that in his investigations of oak trees he had 

 found the giant root-borer to occur around the roots, and had dug 

 them out in large numbers from living as well as dead tissues. 



Mr. Smith stated that he had found them in the roots of cherry 

 trees, working in something like the way described by Mr. Hopkins. 

 According to his observations, except in the case of the blackberry, 

 this insect would not breed in entirely living tissue; and he always 

 assumed that, wherever borers were found in the roots of trees, the 

 roots had been injured by some other cause. The insects are very 

 common in pine logs in southern New Jersey. 



Mr. Smith further stated that another point which had interested 

 him was in reference to the carpenter worm {Prionoxyxtiis rohiniai). 

 It was stated to be a very common insect in the scrub oaks. In south- 

 ern New Jersey, in the second growth from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, 

 the larvfe got in year after j^ear at the same point. Thej- entei- by 

 preference at the place where other insects have made their entrance. 

 If the tree is cut down, one can readily determine the time when the 

 first insect entered. Comparativelj^ small additional borings are made 

 to the original one by succeeding broods. He had made sections in 

 some cases that seemed to indicate that the tree had been infested for 

 at least thirty j^ears. He had found small larvte working out from 

 the end of old galleries. He thought this case offered a good illustra- 

 tion of the resisting power of trees. Those oaks that were most gen- 

 erally infested had certainly stood up for years under the attacks of 

 the borers. He had noted several interesting cases, showing the rela- 

 tion between the woodpecker and carpenter worms, which indicated 

 that sometimes there may be two woodpeckers after the same larva, 

 and there were many cases where the history of these occurrences have 

 been written out in the tree. 



Mr. Felt stated in this connection that he had observed in the parks 

 in Buffalo that the carpenter worm was very common in ash trees and 

 in some sugar maples in St. Lawrence County, and in each instance 

 they went to the heart of the tree. He was inclined to agree with 



