FAMILY SCOLYTID.E. 113 



Tomiccs PIM. 



Tliis species differs from the former in having only three or four teeth at the extremity 

 of the elytra, and in being a smaller insect. Its habits are much the same as those of the 

 txesus, iu living beneath the bark of the white and pitch pine. The grubs of both species 

 accomplish mure injury to forests than the perfect insect. I have taken the last species the 

 first of September. Autumn, or late in the summer, is the period when the perfect insect 

 goes abroad. 



Miss Morris describes the T. liminaris in the Horticulturist, Vol. iv, p. 502. This dis- 

 tinguished entomologist suggests that this insect maybe some way or other connected with 

 the yellows in the peach tree, as it is found under the bark. Its color is brown : thorax 

 punctured, and the elytra both punctured and furrowed, and beset with short hairs. 

 Length one-eighth to one-tenth of an inch. 



Scolytvs (Tomicus) pyri (Peck). Pear-blight Beetle (Harris). 

 6 Color brown : antennse and legs light ferruginous ; elytra punctured in rows, very 

 ' sloping behind ; tibia flattened at the tarsal end, toothed, and terminated with a 

 ' small hook ' ( Harris). 

 This insect has been highly injurious to the pear tree in New-England, and especially 

 in the eastern part of Massachusetts. It was first described by Prof. Peck. The larva first 

 eats its way inward into the wood, making its entrance just at the root of a bud : it reaches 

 the pith, and, by its irritation, appears somehow to poison that portion of the limb above 

 the bud where it first entered. We say poisoned ; because there seems to be something 

 more sudden and effectual in causing death, than a slight interruption in the circulation : 

 the limb or twig looks as if it had perished from gangrene. 



The remedy proposed is to cut the limb and burn it, destroying the insect before it is 

 matured. A careful examination of the pear .in June, in order to detect the first appearance 

 of the approach of the insect, is one of the first steps to be taken. 



[ Agricultural Report — Vol. v.] 15 



