STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
697 
PINK. ROOT. 
217 . Saw-necked Valgus, Valgus serricollis, new species. 
Differing from our two other species in being smaller sized, the thorax hav¬ 
ing along each side a regular series of small sharp-pointed teeth as broad as 
long, resembling those of a saw, the middle of the abdomen beneath densely 
coated with scales of a bright orange yellow, and the anterior shanks with but 
two or three short teeth as broad as long. Length 0.17. 
- Of this species I have seen but one specimen and the abdomen of another, 
which were received from the vicinity of Jackson, Mississippi. They are males, 
of a chestnut red color, the hind breast and abdomen beneath black, its last 
segment chestnut. A large blackish cloud also occupies the middle of the 
closed wing-covers. The thorax is grooved, the wing-covers are striated, and 
the surface is sprinkled with scales, similarly to the other species. On the 
under side the scales are rather sparse and of the usual gray color, but on the 
middle of the abdomen they become dense, wholly hiding the surface, and are 
here bright orange. The anterior shanks have a tooth at their tip, and another 
near their middle, and a very slight angular projection of the surface near their 
base. 
AFFECTING TIIE TRUNK. 
218 . Virginia Buprestis Chalcophora Virginiensis, Drury. (Colcoptera, 
Buprestid®.) 
Occurring upon the leaves of the pine in autumn and 
spring, a hard oblong elliptic beetle, always an inch or more 
in length, of a burnished brassy or coppery color, and rough 
from confluent confused punctures, with elevated polished coarse 
black lines, of which there are three on the thorax, the outer 
ones obscured with coarse punctures, and four on each wing 
cover, all of nearly equal width and curved anteriorly, the 
second one from the suture almost totally interrupted by two 
impressed spots crossing it, and the third obliterated posteriorly 
and uniting anteriorly with the fourth. Its larva boring in the 
sap wood. 
Quite a number of the insects of the family Buprestidje, in 
our own as in foreign lands, live at the expense of the pine, fir 
and other evergreen trees; and M. Perris remarks that of all 
the insect enemies of the pine, some of these beetles are the 
most pernicious, since they make their attack upon living trees 
that are in perfect health, causing them to become sickly and 
to perish, whereas most of the other insects which infest this 
tree prefer it when it is decrepit and diseased, or after it is dead. 
It is in their larva or growing state that these insects injure 
the trees, some of them boring in the interior of the sap wood, 
