21 







Fig. 14. — Xyleborvs perforans : Female and 

 male— enlarged (original). 





forms which are found in the orange breed also in pine and oak. Their 

 galleries are found also in maple, ash, and other woods. Tiny may be 

 driven by hunger to inflict injuries upon healthy trees, but it is only in 

 the sapwood of dying timber that they succeed in establishing them- 

 selves and in raising their young. 



Certain species of Xyleborus have been found to injure wine and 

 beer casks, into the staves of which they bore for the purpose of rais- 

 ing their food fungus. It is doubtful if they breed in such situations. 

 X.perforansWoW. causes leakagein wine 

 casks. It was described by Wollaston 

 from the Island of Madeira. Mr. F. H. 

 Blandford has identified the specimens 

 preserved in the British Museum with 

 X. affinis Eichh., a North American spe- 

 cies, but his determination, made from 

 the females only, cannot be reliable. 

 The same species is said by Blandford 

 to cause leakage in wine and ale casks 

 in India and elsewhere. 



In the Southern United States, leak- 

 age of wine in casks is occasioned by several species of Xyleborus, and 

 it is not unlikely that any native species of the genus may be the author 

 of the damage in moist and warm climates. 



The notorious "shot-hole borer," which riddles with its burrows the 

 joints of sugar cane and causes lamentable injuries in West Indian 



plantations, is supposed by Bland- 

 ford to be identical with the cask- 

 borer, X. perforans, and with A. 

 affinis. 



The male and female of the sugar- 

 cane borer are represented in tig. 

 14. It is very probably a distinct 

 and as yet unnamed species, the 

 introduction of which into the United 

 States is greatly to be feared. It 

 can not be identical witli X. affinis, 

 which is common in the Southern 

 States, yet has never been known to 

 attack sugar cane. 

 Xyleborus fuscatus Eichh. (tig. 15, female and male). — This species 

 is closely allied to X pubescens, and is frequently associated with it in 

 the same galleries. The females of X fuscatus are. however, readily 

 distinguished by the presence at the end of the elytra o( two promi 

 nent teeth, which are surrounded by three or four smaller teeth on the 

 edge of the declivity. All other females of the pubescent group have 

 three rows of feeble teeth on the declivity oi' the elytra, with three or 



Fig. 15.— Xyleborvs fuscatus : Female and 

 male— enlarged (original). 



