14 APPLE-TBUNK BORER — ITS BURROW. 



for it has no feet. It is of a white color, with a yellowish tinge 

 to its head. This maggot eats its way directly downwards in the 

 bark, producing a discoloration where it is situated. If the outer 

 dark colored surface of the bark be scraped off with a knife the 

 last of August or fore part of September, so as to expose the clean 

 white bark beneath, as can easily be done without any injury to 

 the tree, wherever there is a young worm it can readily be detected. 

 A little blackish spot, rather larger than a kernel of wheat, will be 

 discovered wherever an egg has been deposited, and by cutting 

 slightly into the bark the worm will be found. It gradually 

 works its way onwards through the bark, increasing in size as it 

 advances, nntil it reaches the sap-wood ; here it takes up its abode, 

 feeding upon and consuming the soft wood, hereby forming a 

 smooth round flat cavity, the size of a dollar or larger, imme- 

 diately under the bark. It keeps its burrow clean by pushing 

 its excrement out of a small crevice or opening through the bark, 

 which it makes at the lower part of its burrow, and if this orifice 

 becomes clogged up it opens another. This excrement resembles 

 new fine saw dust, and enables us readily to detect the presence 

 of the worm by the little heap pf this substance which is accumu- 

 lated on the ground, commonly covering the hole out of which 

 it is extruded, and by particles of it which adhere around the 

 orifice where it is higher up, or in the fork of the tree; the outer 

 surface of the bark also often becomes slightly depressed, or flat- 

 tened, over this cavity. 



"When the worm is half grown, or more, as if conscious it would 

 now form a dainty tid bit for a woodpecker or any other insectiv- 

 orous bird, and that it was daily becoming less secure in its pre- 

 sent situation, by reason of it#burrow being so large, and formin" 

 so much of a cavity as to be liable to be detected by any scrutiny 

 made on the outside of the tree, it seeks to place itself in a less 

 exposed situation, by gnawing a cylindrical retreat for itself up- 

 wards in the solid heart-wood of the tree. Some of its habits are 

 now reversed. The flat cavity which it was so careful to keep 

 clean it is now intent upon filling up and obliterating, as far as it 

 is able, that it may not be discovered. It ceases to eject its cast- 

 ings, and now crowds and packs them in the lower part of its 



