[95] 



Report of the State Entomologist. 



237 



slowly ruined by these insects. They are what are known as elm- 

 tree beetles, but they do not confine their presence to elm trees. A 

 number of attempts have been made to destroy them, but without 

 success. It is said that in a communication sent to the Commissioner 

 of Agriculture in Washington last year by a distinguished naturalist, 

 he gave it as the result of his experiments that there was no means 

 of exterminating the beetles. All sorts of insect powders have been 

 used by the residents, but in vain. The village streets present such 

 a plague-stricken appearance that the trustees will probably order 

 some of the trees to be cut down to prevent the pestilence from 

 spreading. 



Mr. James Angus has written me of the ravages of the insect as 

 observed by him near Throggs Neck, Westchester county, N. Y., on the 

 24th of August, 1883. A row of elm trees bordering the road had been 

 entirely defoliated by it. " Incredible as it may seem, there was not 

 a green leaf on any of the trees, except that upon some limbs a 

 second growth had commenced. The leaves had been attacked rose- 

 slug fashion, and every tree looked as badly as the worst slug-eaten 

 rose-bush that I had ever seen." Writing the following year, under 

 date of May thirty-first, he stated: "I visited to-day the place where 

 the insect was so destructive last year, and found that the elms were 

 eaten far worse than ever before. A gardener informed me that the 

 leaves had been stripped three times during the preceding year. He 

 showed me two trees that had been killed, and others of which most 

 of the outer limbs were dead." 



Life-history, as Given by Glover. 

 The habits and transformations of this insect were concisely and 

 correctly given, and with such a degree of fullness as to leave but 

 little to be added, by Mr. Glover, Entomologist of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture 

 for the year 1867 (pp. 62-63, with figures). We therefore quote the 

 following from the report named: 



The insect deposits its eggs in clusters upon the leaves, the worms 

 or larvae from which are hatched out in a few days, and immediately 

 commence to feed upon the parenchyma or soft pulpy substance of 

 the leaf, at first making merely small blotches, but eventually, as they 

 increase iu size, destroying the whole leaf, leaving only the harder 

 part, such as the midribs and network of veins untouched, thus caus- 

 ing the leaves to turn brown and wither, until the whole tree assumes 

 the appearance of having been scorched by fire. These worms, when 

 fully grown and ready to change to pup?e, not being able to descend 

 by means of a silken thread, like the real caterpillar, crawl down the 

 trunk to the ground; and soon casting their larva skin, change into 

 pupje on or near the surface of the earth, at the foot of the tree they 

 have despoiled. Some of the worms, however, conceal themselves in 



