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thought to be dying from their attacks. The second stated that the 
beetles were very destructive to Norway maple, beech, and birch trees 
This insect and its kind, as is well known, feed, in their mature con- 
dition, on the sap or juices which exude from borer-infested trees and 
from fruit which is over- ripe or has been injured from any cause, but it 
is not probable that they often attack healthy fruit or seriously injure 
trees. Their mouths are formed for sipping or lapping vegetable juices 
and not for boring or biting. Their active life as adult beetles is short 
and they are incapable, therefore, of very extensive injuries except 
when present in great numbers, as in the past year. 
The larva of this species is subterranean in habit, and has always 
been supposed to live like other allied forms on the rootlets of grass 
and other herbaceous plants. There is practically nothing published 
concerning its larval habits beyond the fact that it occurs in its various 
stages in the nests of ants. I have also reared it from larvse taken at 
Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., with those oi the allied Allorhina nitida in 
manure. The larvae when found July 9 were encased in spherical 
cocoons, smaller than those of Allorhina, but very similar in appear- 
ance. Unfortunately I was unable to follow up the development of 
the species. A day or two after the finding of these larvae I was 
called away and did not return until the last week of August, when 
the adults were found still living in their cocoons. 
Two or three weeks after the beetles are noticed in August and Sep- 
tember they disappear and there can be no doubt that they then enter 
the earth for hibernation. In the first warm days of spring they reap- 
pear, when they may be seen hovering just above the ground along 
pathways and in our gardens. 
Hand-picking appears to be the only remedy for this insect. — F. H. C. 
ABUNDANCE OF AN IMPORTED SNOUT-BEETLE IN MAINE. 
During September of the present year a correspondent at Bangor, 
Me., sent to this office a small lot of a European snout beetle, Scia- 
philus asperatus Bonsd. (muricatus Fab.), which has attracted some 
little attention in that city. Our correspondent informs us that the 
beetles gather on the fences," and "getting on the top rail just cluster 
and keeping still seem to enjoy life." They have a singular habit of 
" piling up on each other in a straight line, many at once and in many 
small groups." They were not, however, observed to be copulating. 
This unusual gathering took place during the first of September and 
was preparatory to hibernation. 
The first notice of the occurrence of this insect in North America is 
by Mr. Samuel Henshaw, published in 1888 in Psyche (vol. v, p. 137). 
The insect was collected at Brookline, Mass., by Mr. F. C. Bowditch, on 
Populus balsamifera. In the Canadian Entomologist (vol. xxiii, pp. 
23, 114, 1891) Mr. W. H. Harrington, reports this species at Sydney, 
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It was found in 1881 and 1890 and was 
