718 [Assembl? 
for it has no feet. It is of a white color, with a yellowish tinge 
to its head. This maggot eats its way directly downwards in the 
bark, producing a discoloration where it is situated. If the outer 
dark colored surface of the bark be scraped off with a knife the 
% last of August or fore part of September, so as to expose the clean 
white bark beneath, as can easily be done without any injury to 
the tree, wherever there is a young worm it can readily be detected. 
A little blackish spot, rather larger than a kernel of wheat, will be 
discovered wherever an egg has been deposited, and by cutting 
slightly into the bark the worm will be found. It gradually 
works its way onwards through the bark, increasing in size as it 
advances, until it reaches the sap-wood; here it takes up its abode, 
feeding upon and consuming the soft wood, hereby forming a 
smooth round flat cavity, the size of a dollar or larger, imme¬ 
diately uuder the bark. It keeps its burrow clean by pushing 
its excrement out of a small crevice or opening through the bark, 
which it makes at the lower part of its burrow, and if this orifice 
becomes clogged up it opens another. This excrement resembles 
new fine saw dust, and enables us readily to detect the presence 
of the worm by the little heap of this substance which is accumu¬ 
lated on the ground, commonly covering the hole out of which 
it is extruded, and by particles of it which adhere around the 
orifice where it is higher up, or in the fork of the tree; the outer 
surface of the bark also often becomes slightly depressed, or flat¬ 
tened, over this cavity. 
When the worm is half grown, or more, as if conscious it would 
now form a dainty tid bit for a woodpecker or any other insectiv¬ 
orous bird, and that it was daily becoming less secure in its pre¬ 
sent situation, by reason of its burrow being so large, and forming 
so much of a cavity as to he liable to be detected by any scrutiny 
made on the outside of the tree, it seeks to place itself in a less 
exposed situation, by gnawing a cylindrical retreat for itself up¬ 
wards in the solid heart-wood of the tree. Some of its habits are 
now reversed. The flat cavity which it was so careful to keep 
clean it is now intent upon filling up and obliterating, as far as it 
is able, that it may not be discovered. It ceases to eject its cast¬ 
ings, and now crowds and packs them in the lower part of its 
