690 FIFTH EtEPOBT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMI88ION. 
pine tree, protected from the observation of birds, its colors being so 
assimilated to those of the bark of either of those trees that it readily 
escapes observation. The beetle appears early in June, and is to be 
found throngh the summer until early in September; and at any time 
in July and August, as well as the first we* k in September, it lays its 
eggs in the manner t<> be described. 
The exact mode of the deposition of their eggs by the Longicorn bee- 
tles is imperfectly known so far as we are aware. 
Professor Riley has described in detail in the New York Weekly 
Tribune, February 20* 1878, the mode of oviposition of the Round-headed 
Apple-tree borer (Saperda bivittuta), and his account has since been 
confirmed in the Rural New Yorker for January 12, 1884, by Mr. C. G. 
Atkins. The beetle makes a straight slit in the bark. Perris,in his Insects 
<h< Pin Maritime, describes the mode of oviposition of Ergates faber and 
Oriocephalus rustic**, but not of Monohammus. We have been fortu- 
nate enough to observe the female beetle while at work making the in- 
cision with her jaws, though we have not observed the final act itself 
of deposition of the eggs. While examiuing the fir trees on the western 
shore of Birch Island, Casco Bay, Maine, on a warm, sunny afternoon of 
August 30, I saw a male Monohammus confusor standing on the bark of 
a living fir about 9 inches in diameter, within the distance of 2 inches 
from a female, whose jaws were buried in the bark of the tree on the 
western side of the trunk, which was exposed to the full rays of the sun. 
On beginning to make the incision, each of the large, sharp, strong 
jaws of this beetle is pushed directly into the bark ; they are then ap- 
parently brought together, and the result is a slight curvilinear gash 
which descends obliquely in the bark. It is probable that the beetle 
pries up the pad thus formed, so that the freshly cut edges are exposed, 
and an opening is thus formed into which the egg is thrust. While 
watching the female at work the male dropped to the ground, and his 
consort becoming alarmed withdrew her jaws from the incomplete in- 
cision, when I seized her. To the end of her ab- 
domen were attached a few fragments of the red- 
dish bark of the fir, and two or three small green 
pellets, probably excrement; but this showed that 
she had already deposited at least one egg, and 
that the labor was slight, the end of the abdomen 
egg; and 6, probably being. simply extended and thrust into 
uo^ha^iu^ol^* the g ft P of the incision. The Longicorns, like 
most other beetles, have no true ovipositor, but the 
end of the abdomen is a simple, flattened, horny tube, in which the 
oviduct terminates; the end of this sheath or tube is probably thrust 
into the gash made by the jaws. 
By prying up the pad formed by the jaws a shallow but roomy cell 
or chamber is made for the egg, which lies nearly or quite horizontally, 
not vertically. 
