346 
The attention of the Department of Entomology of the State Univer- 
sity here was first called to the matter in late summer last year, when 
a farmer brought a girdled branch to the laboratory. The girdling 
plainly showed that it had been done by Oncideres, and later on one or 
two specimens of the insect were secured. While no serious damage has 
been reported this season, many trees planted for shade have suffered 
considerably, and there is evidence that the insect is spreading. Trees 
that are the worse affected this year show a relatively small number of 
last season's scars. The elms on the university campus continued to 
drop their branches for four weeks or more, every moderately strong 
wind bringing down fresh ones. 
On the fourteenth of September your correspondent visited the farm 
of Mr. Harvey, near Blue Mound, to make observations on the work ot 
the girdler. Some of the shade trees in his yard looked as if they had 
been pruned of nearly all the limbs ranging in size from one fourth to 
one-half of an inch in diameter, the ground underneath being quite 
covered with them. Owing to thebrittleness of the heart wood in elm r 
the branches always fall off' with the first breeze that sways them after 
they have been girdled deep enough. Though some of the trees stood 
in the edge of an apple orchard, the apple trees were not affected. Mr. 
Harvey stated, however, that he had noticed one girdled cherry limb 
and two or three of a locust. As these trees stood beneath taller elms,, 
it is probable that the girdling was a mere accidental circumstance. 
A girdler being found at work, her performances were watched for 
more than half an hour. She stood upon the part of the limb that 
would fall, clasping the groove with the front tarsi, and working slowly 
around, sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, deepened the 
channel, though not perceptibly, of course, at each round. The work 
was nearly completed when she was first seen, the groove having 
reached the heart wood and being about one-eighth of an inch in width. 
When working on the under side of the limb, she would face about once 
in a while and, to all appearances, dislodge chips from her mandibles. 
From the fact that the insect is almost invariably found on the 
freshly fallen branch, one might infer that through instinct she always 
stands beyond the notch and facing the tree so that she may go down 
with the branch and finish her ovipositing in case she had not already 
done so. In nearly every case that came under my observation, how- 
ever, the egg-laying was finished when the branch fell, and the insect 
was found either resting or feeding on the tender bark near the end of 
a twig. In one instance, at least, the girdler was still ovipositing when 
the branch was picked up an hour or so after it had fallen. Numerous 
gnawed places on the tender side shoots attest to the quality of a work- 
ing beetle's appetite. 
The line of girdling is usually very regular, and curves around the 
limb nearly at right angles to its longitudinal axis. Very rarely an 
unskilled worker fails to make exact connections in coming around to 
