PINE BORERS. 695 
head. It is the opinion of a majority of the people in the South that the worm fol- 
lows the death of the yellow pine, but close investigation has proved that although 
they never attack a forest or body of timber without first having a dead tree to 
start upon, they do not adhere to the rule after ouce getting a start. For instance, 
should a tree from any cause be felled or lodged against other timber, where 
the two are standing very close together, the worm will enter the adjacent timber 
though it be green and alive, and in this manner continue to spread until the entire 
forest is destroyed. Indeed, I have known instances where only a small sapling 
lodged against other timber caused considerable injury to the timber by souring, and 
thus attracting the parent worm or saw-fly, and after accomplishing their work on 
the sapling they lose no time in removing their forces and attacking any of the tim- 
ber that may be next closest ; and in this way continue to spread until vast forests 
are denuded of their timber. 
The parent fly, or rather bug, is 1| inches long, and of an iron-gray color. It has two 
feelers, or indicators, projecting from the head, from 2 to 2£ inches long, about the 
size of a very coarse horse-hair. They are also provided with two teetli, operated by 
them similar to a pair of pincers, which are used in cutting through the pine bark 
to deposit their eggs. They attack the trunk of the tree first, and at any time dur- 
ing the summer season, but they seem to be more numerous and destructive during 
the months of June and July. The bug begins by eating numerous small holes 
through the bark, and very dexterously it deposits from four to six eggs in the edge 
of the sap, at the bottom of the hole thus made. From two to three days after the 
eggs are deposited in the sap, they hatch and produce a worm one-fourth of an inch 
long, which immediately begins eating the sap, and steadily continues until the sap 
of the entire tree is consumed. A. full grown worm is H inches long, and is at any 
age a clear, white color, excepting the head, which is dark red. They have no legs, 
but are seemingly jointed, and perfectly powerless to get about or travel, unless they 
are in their hole, where they utilize those joints to answer them the purpose of legs, 
and travel with astonishing rapidity. 
As the worms become full grown and the sap scarce, they enter the sappy portion of 
the timber, and cutting and forming a hole as they go of sufficient size to admit 
them, they thus wind about through it and render it worthless, even before it has 
been damaged by decay. So prevalent and sure are they in the summer months that 
the mill men of the South dare not keep a supply of logs longer than a few weeks in 
advance, unless they are provided with a boom or body of water of some sort to 
place them in, which is the only means of effectually preventing the logs from being 
eaten. 
21. The marbled pine-borer. 
MonohamniM marmoratus Randall. 
A large white grub very similar to the last preceding one, and boring in the interior 
of the wood, often in the same trees and logs with it. The beetle coming abroad in 
July and very similar to the preceding, but always smaller, measuring 0.75 to 0.90 in 
length, and distinguished irom it by having the short hairs coating the base, of the 
spine on each side of the thorax of anocher-yellow color instead of white, the thorax 
with numerous confluent punctures across its middle, its wing-covers ash-gray mar- 
bled with tawny brown cloud-like spots, and punctured like the preceding species, 
but the punctures here becoming much more dense towards the base and running 
into each other, the antennae in the females with an ash-gray band at the base of 
each joint, their length in the two sexes as in the preceding species. (Fitch.). 
This is not a particularly common insect, though more closely allied 
to the foregoing species than the following better known one. 
