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severe, as it had also been in 1898, was due to the attacks of a large 
black beetle, Harpalus caliginosus. Years ago I recorded the fact of 
this insect attacking the seeds of ragweed, but it has usually been 
considered predaceous, and therefore beneficial. The beetle seems 
not to care at all for the berry, either green or ripe, but in extracting 
the seeds it leaves the ripe berry a pulpy mass that is absolutely worth- 
less, while the younger berries are so gnawed upon the surface as to pre- 
vent their maturing. Wherever the clusters of injured berries were 
found in the field one or more of these beetles was to be found in the ~ 
near vicinity, generally hiding away under‘a clod, a small stone, or in 
holes in the ground. An examination of the stomach of freshly caught 
beetles showed a vast amount of the softer portions of strawberry seeds 
reduced to small bits. In no case did the hull of the seed appear to 
have been eaten. The beetles are large and conspicuous, easily trapped 
and killed when it is once known that they are the authors of the mis- 
chief, but in every case where this injury has been reported to me, speci- 
mens of the Myodocha have accompanied the complaint. I have already 
received other reports of this injury from the same vicinity. One of 
the persons who has suffered from the ravages of this insect states that 
they worked very badly on his premises in 1898, but not very severely 
in 1899, but this year again they are seriously destructive. Burning | 
the patches over does not seem to be effective. From the fact that the 
Hemipter has always accompanied the first complaints of this trouble, 
Iam wondering if the published reports of its injury in other States 
have not really been due to the work of the Harpalus. 
On August 28, 1899, while Mr. Mally was inspecting a small nursery, 
he found what he took to be larve of the round-headed apple-tree 
borer, working in the bases of young linden trees. These were trans- 
ferred to a breeding cage in the insectary. June 15 of the present 
year it became necessary to move this cage and in the badly eaten and 
partially decayed wood about 4 inches below the surface of the 
ground, active larve were found. On April 38 of the present year 
there emerged from one of these stumps an adult Saperda vestita. 
April 4 the material still remaining in the breeding cage was examined, 
and one larva and one pupa were found still in the wood. The larva 
had worked in the wood and tap root entirely below the surface of the 
ground, the upper limit of the work of the larva being from 2 to 4 
inches below the point that marked the surface of the ground where 
the trees had been growing. When ready to pupate the larva seems 
to bore upward in the wood to what would be about on a level with 
the surface of the ground, and pupates in a cell cut diagonally across 
the grain of the wood at an angle of about 45 degrees to the upward 
channel. This insect has always been known as attacking the linden, 
but I believe this is the first record of its being found attacking trees 
below the surface of the ground. 
