326 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
APPLE. TRUNK. 
I. Prickly Leptostyi.us, Leptostylus aculiferus , Say. (Colcoptera. Cerara- 
bycidae.) [Plate I, tig. 4.] 
Small worms, similar in appearance to young apple tree borers, 
occurring sometimes in multitudes under the bark, forming long, 
narrow winding tracks upon the outer surface of the wood, these 
tracks becoming broader as the worm has increased in size. 
A rather short and thick brownish gray beetle, with small 
prickle-like points upon its wing covers, and back of their middle 
a white curved or V-shaped band, with a black streak on its hind 
edge. Length, 0.35. Appearing the last of August. See Country 
Gentleman, vol. ix, p. 78. 
The wood of the apple tree was formerly highly valued for cabinet work in 
this country. In 1786, a son of Gen. Israel Putnam, residing in Williams- 
town, Mass., had a table made from one of his apple trees. Many years after¬ 
wards the gnawing of an insect was heard in one of the leaves of this tabic, 
which noise continued for a year or two, when a large long-horned beetle made 
its exit therefrom. Subsequently the same noise was heard again, and 
another insect, and afterwards a third, all of the same kind, issued from this 
tabic leaf-—the first one coming out twenty and the last one twenty-eight years 
after the tree was cut down. These facts are more fully stated in the history 
of the county of Berkshire, published at Pittsfield, 1829, pago 39. This, I 
believe, is the longest period of an insect remaining alive in timber, of which 
we have any record, and it is important to ascertain, if possible, what insect 
this was. John J. Putnam, Esq., of Whitecreck, N. Y., was a young man, resid¬ 
ing at his father’s in Williamstown, when these remarkable incidents occurred. 
On showing to him specimens of all the larger long-horned beetles of this 
vicinity, he points to the Cerasphorus balteatus (plate 1, fig. 8; see insects infes¬ 
ting the trunk of the hickory,) as being the same insect, according to the best 
of his recollection, though he is not certain but it might have been the Calli- 
dium agreste. This testimony, in connection with what President Fitch of Wil¬ 
liams college says of the insect in the notice above referred to, “ its color dark 
glistening brown with tints of yellow,” releases us from all doubts upon this 
subject, as the agreste is of a uniform brown color, whilst the balteatus com¬ 
monly presents traces more or less distinct of an oblique yellowish spot or band 
near the middle of its wing covers. We may therefore regard the balteatus as 
another insect which occasionally bores in the trunks of the apple tree. 
5. Apple bark beetle, Tomicus Mali, new sp. (Colcoptera. Scolytidse) 
Young thrifty trees, soon after putting forth their leaves in 
spring, suddenly withering, as though scorched by lire, the bark 
becoming loosened from the wood, and soon after numerous per- 
