226 GEOIvOGICAIv SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 



The wire-worms do not, as a rule, enter a tree or log until 

 germs of decay are present, and they are not borers in the real 

 sense of the word, except in soft or dry rot. The smaller species 

 as a rule remain close under the bark and do not get into the 

 body of the tree at all ; but the larger species may be found 

 wherever the tissue is soft enough to be penetrated by them. 



The largest of all is about i ^ inches long and produces what 

 is known as the eyed Elater, Alaus oculatus. It is over an inch 

 long, loose jointed, gray and black speckled, the thorax with 

 two very large eye-like black spots, one on each side, which 

 attract attention whenever the insect is seen and make it easily 

 recognizable. 



The hammer-heads make a species of Chalcophora about an 

 inch in length, not over one-fourth of an inch broad at the 

 shoulders, tapering posteriorly, somewhat flattened above and 

 more or less bronzed in color. These borers are not so long 

 lived as the longicorn larvse, and I know of no instance of their 

 remaining in the larval state so many years under adverse con- 

 ditions. 



When water enters and decay has actually begun, another 

 series of larvse comes in — the "white grubs." White grubs are 

 cylindrical, fat creatures, almost always curled up in a ring^ 

 with yellow or brown head, large, powerful jaws or mandibles, 

 six well-developed brown legs and a very blunt posterior 

 extremity. The creatures are clumsy in appearance and help- 

 less when taken out of their burrows, their small fore body 

 being incapable of properly supporting and balancing the 

 clumsy, food-distended hind body. From the largest of these 

 white grubs, distinguished by its ivory-like color and texture, 

 comes our stag beetle, Lucanus dama^ also known as the "pinch- 

 ing bug," because of the prominent mandibles of the male. 



Gnawing at the roots of the stumps are others of these large 

 grubs, from which come the " Rhinoceros beetles," so called 

 because of the long horn on the front of the head, and others 

 without a common name, species of Strategus^ with horn-like 

 processes on the thorax — formidable creatures all of them, in 

 appearance, but actually harmless. It is not often that these 

 insects are seen by the uninitiated, but they are, nevertheless, 

 present, and are sometimes quite numerous in the Pines. 



