[129] Report of the State Entomologist. 271 



Referring to Mr. Junking' observations of the first egg having been 

 deposited after the middle of June, many after July eleventh, and 

 oviposition continued even after the twenty-sixth of August (probably 

 into September), it would seem advisable that the use of the soap 

 application — perhaps our best preventive of the injuries of this 

 pernicious borer — should, in northern New York, not be delayed 

 longer than the first week of June, and should be continued through 

 the month of July and into August. 



Mr. Charles G. Atkins, of Bucksport, Maine, in a paper read before 

 the Maine State Pomological Society at its last annual meeting, con- 

 firms the above observations on the late oviposition of Saperda 

 Candida. He has found the egg-laying to begin (at his farm in 

 Kennebec county) soon after the middle of June, and to continue 

 until late in August, and had met with unhatched eggs after the first 

 of September. 



Mr. Atkins offers the suggestion that relief from this apple-tree 

 borer may be better sought through remedial than preventive 

 measures. With young trees having a smooth bark he would prefer 

 mounding the base to a height of six inches or more with sand, thus 

 compelling the borer to place its eggs where they, or the young 

 larvae emerging from them and entering the bark, may easily be 

 discovered by proper inspection and destroyed. {Home Farm, March 

 5, 1885.) 



Ortkaltica copalina (Fabr.). 



Numbers of this beetle were observed at Schoharie, N. Y., on July 

 sixth, feeding on the leaves of Rhus typhina. It was the first time 

 that the species had been noticed by me upon this plant. Many of 

 the beetles were paired, while others were engaged in feeding on the 

 lower surface of the leaves which they eat away, causing them to dry 

 up and shrivel as if from the effect of heat. 



This species belongs to the Chrysomelidoe, and to the group Grepi- 

 doderce. In systematic arrangement it comes next to Ejntrix, and is, 

 therefore, closely allied to the well-known cucumber flea-beetle, Epi- 

 trix cucumeris (Harris), which at the present time is so injurious to 

 the potato crop in the State of New York. 



In the sixth Missouri report, Professor Riley has given illustration, 

 the life-history, etc., of another sumach-feeding Chrysomelid, Blaphar- 

 ida rhois (Forst.), which he designates as the "jumping sumach 

 beetle." It feeds readily on all of our indigenous sumachs, and in 

 some years completely denudes them over large tracts of territory. 



