37 



POPULAR PAPERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



THE OAK-PRUNER: ELAPHIDION VILLOSUM, Fabr. 



BY FREDERICK CLARKSON, NEW YORK. 



In support of the records relating to the periods of transformation of this beetle, and 

 the probable cause of their pruning the branches of the Oak, which I had the pleasure to 

 contribute to the Report for 1885, I now add some further facts, resulting from a recent 

 visit to Clermont, N. Y. 



On the 29th of October, I gathered from under a group of Quercus tinctoria seven 

 branches that had been pruned by this longicorn. The tunnels were from ten to fifteen 

 inches long, in branches from one-half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness. The 

 branches I carefully divided lengthwise, so that the parts could be replaced in position. 

 Six of them contained the pupa, one the larva, which pupated November 4th. One o£ 

 the pupse I preserved as a specimen. The imagoes appeared on the following days : Nov. 

 14th, 22nd, 26th, 29th, Dec. 9th and 25th, all females. 



These transformations were rather hindered than advantaged by meteorological 

 conditions, for they occurred in a room having a northern exposure, in which, during the 

 period of the transformations, the thermometrical record differed but little from that in 

 the shade without. Had the branches remained upon the ground, the included insect 

 would have received all the benefits resulting from the direct rays of our Indian summer's 

 sun, as well as the moisture from the ground ; influences that ordinarily assist develop- 

 ment. As the imagoes appeared they were examined and replaced in their tunnels, where 

 they now remain in a passive state, and are not likely, I think, to exhibit their natural 

 activity until next May or June. 



The object of the paper referred to, as well as this article, is to present facts that 

 seemingly disprove certain theories relating to the habits and metamorphoses of this 

 beetle, which have been formulated by distinguished sires and accepted by their credulous 

 sons. What Drs. Peck, Fitch, and Harris have written upon this subject has been sub- 

 stantially repeated by almost every entomologist who has undertaken a history of this 

 beetle. We are very apt to fall into line when we have an abiding confidence in a leader. 

 While I am unwilling to deny the conclusions of these naturalists, I yet think that the 

 facts related go to show that the insect matures at a period earlier than that named by 

 them, and that the benefits supposed to result from a dismemberment of the branch, in 

 so far as the changed environment is concerned, are wholly unnecessary to the develop- 

 ment of the included insect, and that there is a plausibility in the inference, if not a 

 certainty as to fact, that the object of pruning the branch is to prevent the flow of sap. 

 If the habits of this beetle as given by these doctors are to be regarded as ipso facto, then 

 we must admit the possession of a faculty in these lower organisms that towers above 

 instinct and presents the feature of intelligent reason. This is a subject that cannot very 

 well be discussed in these pages, yet it may not be out of place to say that able writers on 

 the question very generally admit that the habits of insects follow a prescribed law, by 

 some regarded, in a materialistic sense, as mechanical ; and by others, spiritually con- 

 sidered, as in furtherance of a divine edict. This latter view is very cleverly presented 

 by St. George Mivart, in Organic Nature's Riddle : "Our experience," he writes, "is in 

 favour of the existence of an intelligence which can implant in and elicit from unconscious 

 bodies activities that are intelligent in appearance and result ' Uncon- 



sciously intelligent action,' improperly called ' intelligent,' is that which is called intelligent 

 only as to its results and not in the innermost principle of the creatures which perform 



