POPLAR BORERS. 435 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE POPLAR. 
AFFECTING THE TRUNK. 
1. The poplar borer. 
Saperda calcarata Say. 
Order Coleoptera ; family Cerambycid^:. 
Often destroying the Lorabardy poplar, a yellowish-white grub, nearly 2 inches 
long, andchaugiug to a gray lougicorn beetle, irregularly striped with yellow ocher, 
the wing-covers ending in a sharp point, flying in August and September. 
Harris states that this borer, with the grabs of the broad-necked 
Prionus, almost destroyed the Lombardy poplars in his vicinity (Cam- 
bridge, Mass.), and that it also lives in the trunks of the native poplar. 
The beetles rest on the trunks and branches of various kinds of poplars 
in August and September, and also fly* by night, sometimes entering 
the open windows in the evening. According to Kiiey this borer is 
universally destructive to the cottonwood in the Western States. 
This borer has been destructive to poplar trees on the shores of Casco 
Bay, especially at the head of the bay west of Harpswell Neck, where 
my attention was first called to its work by ex-Governor J. L. Chamber- 
lain, on whose estate at New Wharf a number of trees had died. The 
trees in August, 1884, were seen to show unmistakable signs of disease 
by the leaves curling and withering. The presence of the larva within 
is easily detected by the masses of castings resembling sawdust, which 
are thrown out of the holes and fall down the trunk to the ground. 
Upon cutting down the trees and splitting them open, not only the 
full grown larva, or grub, but also one or two pupae and several beetles 
were found, the latter ready to issue from their holes. As many as 
eight or ten larvae were found mining in a portion of a poplar trunk 10 
inches long and 5 inches in diameter. 
The wood was perforated in all directions, running under the bark 
part of the way and sinking in various directions into the wood, some 
of them extending side by side along the heart of the tree. The longer 
mines are about a foot in length, and about a centimeter or four-tenths 
of, and at times half, an inch in diameter. Tart of the mine is more or 
less stuffed with long, slender chips gnawed off by the larva. Mr. 
Eeed, of Scottsville, N. Y., writes to the American Entomologist 
(iii, p. 181) that this borer identified by Professor Kiley) " destroyed two 
fine trees upon my lawn of the native poplar, or, as it is sometimes 
called, the trembling aspen. They perforate the trunk midway up 
amongst the branches, when the top dies or is broken off by the wind." 
Ihe larva. — About 2 inches long ; the body very thick, rather larger before than 
behind ; the segments full and rounded. The first segment broad, sloping obliquely 
downward to the head. On the upper side of the broad segment (prothoracic) con- 
