149 
covering a number of them with its web. Several examples of the 
imago of this larva were reared and the species was determined by 
Messrs. Schwarz and Pergande as probably Comstock's Balruma cocci- 
divora. Subsequently, I observed apparently the larvae of the same 
species feeding upon a similar scale on tulip tree twigs in Wood County. 
Insect injurious to tan bark. — May 15, I received a piece of chestnut- 
oak tan bark from Mr. G. Paunall, of Hampshire County, which had 
been eaten by a bark-boring larva. Mr. Paunall, who is a dealer in tan 
bark, informs me that this injury is of common occurrence in bark 
three or more years old. Upon examining some old bark at a tannery 
in Morgantown, I found that the larva, which is evidently a Ceram- 
bycid, is indeed a destructive pest. Xo living examples could be found 
at work, but from the number of elytra present, evidently of Phymatodes 
variabilis,! am led to believe that this species is to blame for the 
trouble. 
The chestnut timber-worm. — On June 3, I discovered the pupa of 
the chestnut timber worm in chestnut trees and stumps near Morgan- 
town, from which the imagos emerged June 12 to 15, and proved to be 
the rare beetle, Lymexylon sericeum. and on June 20 1 cut male and 
female examples of the same thing from a chestnut tree in Wood 
County. This result will be of interest to Coleopterists from the fact 
that it explains the mystery regarding a larva first described by Harris 
(Injurious Insects, p. 68) as that of Eupsalis minuta. subsequently fig- 
ured by Riley, Sixth Missouri Report, as an undetermined Tenebrionid 
and correcting Harris' mistake. The same larva was figured and men- 
tioned by me in " Hardwood," of February 25, 1893, as an undetermined, 
and probably a new Lyniexylid. Also in my catalogue of West Vir- 
ginia Forest and Shade Tree Insects (p. 190) as a ••Lymexylid larva 
sp. a.;" and in a paper read before the Washington Entomological 
Society, October 5, 1893,1 referred to the larva as a Lyniexylid, basing 
my conclusions upon a microscopic study of the mouth parts and other 
external characters in comparison with the larva of Hyleceetus lugubris. 
In the discussion, Messrs. Riley and Schwarz thought that it must be 
a Tenebrionid, and that it would probably prove to be the larva of 
Strongylium. This, together with Prof. Riley's subsequent statement 
in a letter November 23. 1893, that he had tentatively referred the spe- 
cies to Strongylium led me to mention it in the index to Insects. Bul- 
letin 35, as 4 - Strongylium sp. ( ?) Riley, family Tenebrionid^.'' That it 
should prove to be the larva of Lymexylon sericeum was a surprise to 
us all, and is of especial interest in being another example like Corthy- 
lus columbianus of an extremely rare insect in collections being the 
cause of one of the commonest defects in wood, and among the worst 
timber pests known. It is also of interest in showing Harris's error 
in concluding that the larvae of American Lymexylids were the same 
as those of European species, an opinion which some European writers 
have interpreted as a fact. I agree with Mr. Schwarz in his opinion 
