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letter of March 10 that within a year a whole row of maple trees on a 

 street had died, one after another, and the trees were then being dug 

 up. An investigation of the trees disclosed the presence of numerous 

 larvre of Agrilus, which our correspondent believed to be the cause of 

 the trouble. In our rearing cages the beetles began to issue April 18, 

 continuing until tbe 23d. The species concerned proved to be Agrilus 

 otiosus Say. 



During the spring of 1893 all stages of this Agrilus were taken by the 

 writer in abundance on a dying tree of the flowering dogwood (Gornus 

 florida) growing in the suburbs of Washington, in the District of Columbia. 

 Field observations began during the first week of May and continued 

 until the end of the month. May 18 the majority of the insects were 

 turning to imagos, some haying developed at that time. Larvse taken 

 from the pupal chamber May 6 transformed to pupae on the 13th and to 

 imagos the 28th, the duration of the pupal stage having been fifteen days. 

 The pupal cells were constructed in the wood just beneath the bark and 

 at varying angles to the grain of the wood, seldom at right angles, 

 though often approaching it. The exact dimensions of the galleries 

 and their general character were not observed at this time further than 

 to note that in these respects the work of this species resembled that of 

 the two-lined chestnut borer, A. bilineatus. 



Dogwood appears to be the favorite food tree of this species, but it is 

 probably a somewhat general feeder. The writer has reared the beetles 

 from butternut and redbud (Gercis canadensis) in June, and has seen 

 individuals sunning themselves on dead box-elder under such circum- 

 stances as to lead to the belief that this was also a food plant; and 

 there is record in Packard's Fifth Report of the United States Entomo- 

 logical Commission (p. 376) of the beetles of this species feeding on 

 freshly formed foliage at the tips of new growths of locust. Dr. Blanch - 

 ard, in his list of Massachusetts Buprestidse (loo. cit.), notes the common 

 occurrence of this species on oak shrubs in June and July, and the late 

 Dr. John Hamilton (Tr. Amer. Ent. Soc, Vol. XXII, p. 364) adds that 

 it breeds in oak. Dr. A. D. Hopkins states that it "infests bark on 

 dead twigs and branches of hickory and black walnut," the adults being 

 found from April 14 to July 25. (Bui. Xo.32, W. Va. Ag. Exp. Sta., p. 183.) 

 The same writer has mentioned the attack of some species of Agrilus, 

 perhaps the one under consideration, on Gornus Jlorida. (Insect Life, Vol. 

 VII, p. 198.) 



In the writer's experience it infests particularly the larger limbs of 

 its host trees. 



THE TWO-LINED CHESTNUT BORER. 



July 8, 1899, Mr. C. G. Hatcher, Macon, Ga., sent specimens of the 

 larva of what is with little doubt Agrilus bilineatus Weber, with report 

 that it threatened the extermination of the wild chestnut trees on his 

 plantation in Crawford County, Ga. Fifty years ago, he writes, the 



