8 FOKTY-SECOND REPORT ON THE STATE MUSEUM. [126] 



flowered Crocus, in which sometimes a half-dozen of the carpet- 

 beetles would be seen at the same time. 



An early date for its flight within doors is March sixth, when an 

 example of it was seen floating in the water of 

 an aquarium in my office. It is probable, however, 

 that the beetle may at any time during the 

 winter months, be brought out from its quiet and 

 often protracted repose within its ruptured pupal 

 skin (alike contained within the split larval skm), 

 as it has been observed under such conditions, 

 disclosing segments of its brilliantly-scaled wing- 

 covers, on November eighteenth. A number of our 

 be?tie!\NTHEE r Nus note( i household pests, in their perfect domestica- 

 sckophularle. tion, are apparently no longer subject to stated 



times for the appearance of their successive broods. 



As a Museum Pest. — From a box of unspread Noctuidce, contained in 

 a drawer of the entomological cabinet at the Capitol, two examples of 

 A. scrophularice and three of A. varius, were taken on January 11, 1888 ; 

 the note made at the time does not state how many of them were alive. 

 The only other instance under my observation of the carpet-beetle as 

 an insect pest, was in finding a living imago, early in January, in 

 association with an Eumenes fraterna, upon which it had evidently 

 been feeding and partially consumed. 



The Oak-pruner. 

 Elaphidion parallelum (Newm.). 



Mr. George Theo. Lyman, of Bellport, Suffolk Co., N. Y., writes of 

 an extraordinary increase this year (1887) of this oak-pruner. He 

 had gathered, on his place alone, six large cart-loads of the severed 

 twigs. 



Most of the twigs, on examination, were found to contain the larva, 

 but in quite a number it was absent, and in these cases there was a 

 hole in the cut-on end. He was led, from this observation, to ques- 

 tion the statement of Harris and others, that the insect transformed 

 within the twig. Reply was made that in these cases, probably, the 

 packing of the burrow in the excised section had been eaten into by 

 some bird or predatory insect, and the larva devoured. That many 

 of the larvae and pupse are thus destroyed has been recorded by dif- 

 ferent writers. Dr. Fitch records that insectivorous birds have 

 frequently been seen industriously picking around the ends of the 



