98 



COLEOPTERA. 



Fig. 48. 



the spring this grub is transformed to a pupa, and in June or 

 July it is changed to a beetle, and comes out of the branch. 

 Fi 47 The history of this insect was first made 



public by Professor Peck,* who called it 

 the oak-pruner, or Stenocorus QElaphidwn) 

 putator (Fig 47). u In its adult state it is 

 a slender long-horned beetle, of a dull 

 brown color, sprinkled with gray spots, 

 composed of very short close hairs ; the 

 antennse are longer than the body in the males, and equal to 

 it in length in the other sex, and the third and fourth joints 

 are tipped with a small spine or thorn ; the thorax is barrel- 

 shaped, and not spined at the sides ; and the scutel is yellow- 

 ish-white. It varies in length from four and a 

 half to six tenths of an inch. It lays its eggs 

 in July. Each egg is placed close to the axilla 

 or joint of a leaf-stalk or of a small twig, near 

 the extremity of a branch. The grub (Fig 48) 

 hatched from it penetrates at that spot to the 

 pith, and then continues its course towards the 

 body of the tree, devouring the pith, and there- 

 by forming a cylindrical burrow, several inches 

 in length, in the centre of the branch.' Having 

 reached its full size, which it does towards the 

 end of the summer, it divides the branch at 

 trie lower end of its burrow (Fig 49, pupa), 

 by gnawing away the wood transversely from 

 within, leaving only the ring of bark untouched. 

 It then retires backwards, stops up the end 

 of its hole, near the transverse section, with 

 fibres of the wood, and awaits the fall of the 

 branch, which is usually broken off and pre- 

 Fupa. cipitated to the ground by the autumnal winds. 



Fig. 49. 



* Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, Vol. V., with a plate. 



[ n This species was previously described by Fabricius as Stenocorus villosus, 

 which specific name must therefore be preserved. — Lec ] 



