STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
439 
HICKORY TRUNK. 
wood? or does she bore through 
these layers with her ovipositor 
and place her egg under the 
bark and upon the outer sur¬ 
face of the wood? The Apple- 
tree borer deposits her egg 
upon the outside of the bark, 
according to the observations 
of Esq. Baldwin, as related in 
my first report (Transactions, 
1854, pp. 717, 718). But ac¬ 
cording to the statements of 
my esteemed fellow townsman, 
Wm. McKie, Esq., who has 
had the misfortune of having 
much experience w r ith this in¬ 
sect, the results of which were 
communicated by him to the 
Horticulturist, published at 
Rochester, a few years since, the parent insect pierces through 
the bark and places her egg in contact with the wood. It 
is probably impossible to decide from an inspection of the per¬ 
foration in the bark, whether it has been made by a minute worm 
which has gnawed its way through the bark, or has been pierced 
by the boring apparatus of the parent insect. It is only by see¬ 
ing the egg in place before it is hatched, or by finding the infan¬ 
tile worm on its way through the bark that this point can be 
settled. The young worm lives at first upon the soft outer layers 
of the sap wood, mining a shallow cavity all around the orifice 
in the bark, and the bark dies and turns black as far as this bur¬ 
row extends. Its jaws having at length become sufficiently strong, 
it gnaws its way into the solid wood from the upper part of its 
burrow under the bark, boring obliquely inward and upward, all 
the lower part of its burrow being commonly packed with its saw¬ 
dust-like chips. Finally, having completed its growth, it extends 
the upper end of its burrow outward again to the bark, as shown 
in the cut heretofore given, Transactions, 1854, p. 851, which cut 
illustrates, on a diminished scale, the exit of this insect from the 
