676 FIFTH KFPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
their work is not SO apparent, since tbe roots grow rapidly, but in dry 
seasons they become most destructive and annoying. 
Fig. 217.— May beetle and its transformations— 2. larva 
1, pupa. — Alter Riley. 
AFFECTING THE TRUNK. 
2. The large pixe flat-headed borer. 
Chalcophora virgimensin (Drury). 
Order Coleoptera ; family Buprestidje. 
Boring in the sap-wood and girdliug the tree, a flat-headed, white grub ; the track 
beginning as narrow and shallow groves on the surface of the wood, forming irregu- 
lar wavy or serpentine tracks, which gradually increase in width a^ the larva grows, 
ending in a large hole where the grub pupates ; the beetle occurring on the leaves in 
spring and autumn. 
The habits of this beetle in its preparatory stages are probably much 
like those of Chrysobothris femorata, which infests the oak, aud the 
galleries which it makes under the bark are much like those of the 
oak buprestid. No thorough observations have been made upon the 
natural history of this interesting beetle. It appears in the Northern 
States toward the end of May, and through the mouth 
of June, as Harris states, while we have observed it 
in Maine on pine trees the middle of July, and Fitch 
states that it occurs upon the leaves of the pine in 
autumn. Harris says that in the larva state it bores 
into the trunks of the different kinds of piues, and is 
oftentimes very injurious to these trees. 
Beetle.— Oblong oval, brassy or copper colored, sometimes al- 
most black, with hardly any metallic reflections. The upper side 
of the body is roughly punctured; the top of the head is deeply indented; on the 
FIG. 218 —('halm 
phora virginitn 
m.— Marx del. 
