OAK-BORERS. 81 
they mined the bark and scored the wood in directions radiating on one 
side of the place of oviposition ; in one caseamiue went directly across 
the one next to it. The specimen figured was found at Salem, Mass. 
Beetle.— Of the form indicated by the figure ; prothorax square, augulated on each 
side in front, with a short spine on each wing-cover, with eleven well-marked ridges. 
Color, dark brown, with paler, stiff, short, hirsuties. Base and tips of femora and rest 
of the legs, including the antennae, pitchy reddish. Length, 6to8 mm . 
22. The silky timber-beetle. 
Lymexylon sericeum (Harris). . 
Order Coleoptera ; Family Lymexylid^e. 
Boring small long cylindrical burrows in the wood of the oak, probably, and other 
trees; a slender, odd-looking worm, with six legs placed on its breast, a prominent 
hump upon its neck, and a leaf-like fleshy appendage at the end of its back ; chang- 
ing into a long, narrow chestnut-brown beetle, 0.50 long, bearded with short, shining, 
yellowish hairs, giving it a silky luster ; its eyes large and almost meeting together 
above and below, and its wing-covers tapering and shorter than the body. See 
Harris's Treatise, p. 51. (Fitch.) 
23. The American timber-beetle. 
Hyleccetus americanus (Harris). 
Order Coleoptera ; Family Lymexylid^e. 
A worm very similar to the preceding, but with a straight, sharp-pointed horn at 
the end of its back in place of a leaf-like appendage ; changing into a pale brownish 
red beetle, 0.40 long ; its wing-covers, except at their base and its breast, black, its 
eyes small, and a glassy dot on the middle of its forehead resembling a small eyelet. 
(See Harris's Treatise, p. 51.) 
This and the preceding are very rare insects, and their larvae have 
never been detected, but are inferred by Dr. Harris to inhabit oaks and 
to have the singular forms above indicated, from the analogy of the per- 
fect insects to two European species. Foreign writers, I see, are misled 
by Dr. Harris's account into supposing that it is authentically ascer- 
tained that our insects coincide in their larva state with the European 
species. (Fitch.) 
Beetle. — Its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs are light brownish red ; the wing- 
covers, except at the base, where they are also red, and the breast, between the middle 
and hindmost legs, are black. Head not bowed down under the prothorax ; eyes 
small and black ; on the middle of the forehead is one small reddish eyelet ; antennae 
like those of Lymexylon sericeum, but shorter ; thorax nearly square, but wider than 
long; and in each wing-cover are three slightly elevated ribs. Length, 10 mm (7% 
inch). (Harris.) 
Microclytus gazelhila (Haldeman). 
This beetle has been found in the oak in early May at Buffalo, N. 
Y., by Messrs. Reinecke and Zesch. (Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc, vi, 36.) 
5 ent 6 
