230 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [88] 



thorax of the normal color, while the elytra are dark brown, 

 slightly mottled with paler brown. The females have the thorax 

 delicately punctured (smooth in the other sex), with the wing-covers 

 strongly punctured. 



Distribution. 



This beetle is quite abundant locally, at times, in most of the South- 

 ern States. To the west of the Mississippi, it occurs in Arizona, 

 Kansas, Missouri, etc. It is found in Pennsylvania, but rarely. Dr. 

 Fitch, in his Third Report on the Insects of New York, notices it as 

 infesting the cherry (presumably in New York), but if taken within 

 the State, it must have been in its southern portions. 



Food of the Insect. 



This insect has not been numbered among our insect pests, since 

 its food has generally been supposed to be confined to decaying vege- 

 table matter. The larva, probably, subsists only on material of this 

 nature, which is a fortunate circumstance, for from its large size, 

 attaining, it is said, four inches in length and a large diameter, it 

 would be capable of inflicting most serious injury if it burrowed within 

 the roots or trunks of living trees. 



It has frequently been found (either as larva or imago) in cavities 

 of dead or dying trees, as the cherry, willow, oak, etc., buried within 

 the black vegetable material there accumulated. 



The beetle, however, seems capable of injuries of considerable impor- 

 tance. Mr. J. W. Murrell, of Perrowville, Va., has informed me that, 

 on the thirtieth of June, numbers of the beetle were feeding on the 

 tender shoots of the spring growth of ash trees, causing the leaves to 

 fall and cover the ground as if a frost had passed over them. 



Request made of Mr. Murrell for additional observations on the 

 feeding and other habits of the beetle was promptly complied with, in 

 the following interesting communication received from his son, Mi. 

 G. E. Murrell, of Coffe, Va. 



Among the trees on my father's lawn are twenty of ash, to six of 

 which my observations have been mostly directed, as they have been 

 infested yearly for some time past. These are in different parts of 

 the lawn, between other ash trees, and are the same in health and 

 otherwise as those not attacked. I have first seen the beetles coming 

 out of the ground at the roots of the trees, with one exception, which 

 was four years ago, when I dug them out of a decayed fork of a mul- 

 berry, on which no trace of them has since been seen. 



When feeding on the ash, they place themselves longitudinally on 

 a smooth limb, and, rising to the full extent of their legs, move their 

 entire body backward and forward like a plane, using several chisel-like 

 projections on the under-side of the head for cutting, stopping the 



