104 COLEOPTERA. 



recognition or defiance. Having paired, the female, attend- 

 ed by her partner, creeps over the bark, searching the 

 crevices with her antennae, and dropping therein her snow- 

 w^hite eggs, in clusters of seven or eight together, and at 

 intervals of five or six minutes, till her whole stock is safely 

 stored. The eggs are soon hatched, and the grubs immedi- 

 ately burrow into the bark, devouring the soft inner sub- 

 stance that suffices for their nom'ishment till the approach 

 of winter, during which they remain at rest in a torpid state. 

 In the spring they bore through the sap-wood, more or less 

 deeply into the trunk, the general course of their winding 

 and irregular passages being in an upward direction from 

 the place of their entrance. For a time they cast their chips 

 out of their holes as fast as they are made, but after a while 

 the passage becomes clogged and the burrow more or less 

 filled with the coarse and fibrous fragments of wood, to get 

 rid of which the grubs are often obliged to open new holes 

 through the bark. The seat of their operations is known by 

 the oozing of the sap and the dropping of the sawdust from 

 the holes. The bark around the part attacked begins to 

 swell, and in a few years the trunks and limbs will become 

 disfigured and weakened by large porous tumors, caused by 

 the efforts of the trees to repair the injuries they have 

 suffered. According to the observations of General H. A. 

 S. Dearborn, who has given an excellent account* of this 

 insect, the grubs attain their full size by the 20th of July, 

 soon become pupse, and are changed to beetles and leave the 

 trees early in September. Thus the existence of this species 

 is limited to one year. 



Whitewashing, and covering the trunks of the trees with 

 grafting composition, may prevent the female from deposit- 

 ing her eggs upon them ; but this practice cannot be carried 

 to any great extent in plantations or large nurseries of the 

 trees. Perhaps it will be useftil to head down young trees 

 to the ground, with the view of destroying the grubs con- 



* JIassachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, Vol. VI. p. 272. 



