800 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
OAK. limbs. 
Thus the first part of the life of this worm is passed in a small twig 
branching off from the main limb. This is so slender and delicate that on 
being mined as it is by the worm and all its green outer end consumed, it 
dies and becomes so decayed and brittle that it is usually'broken off when 
the limb falls, whereby it has escaped the notice of writers, hitherto. 
The remainder of his larva life is passed in the main limb, first cutting off 
this limb sufficiently for it to break with the force of the winds, and then 
excavating a burrow upwards in the center of the limb, both before and after 
it has fallen to the ground, feeding hereon until lie lias grown to his full size. 
It is most frequently the limbs of the red and the black oak that I have 
met with, severed by the Oak pruner, though it is not rare to find those of 
the scarlet oak (Q. coccinea ) and of the white oak lopped off in the same 
manner. Limbs of the beech and chestnut not unfrequently, and those of 
the birch, the apple, and probably of other trees, are sometimes similarly 
severed. Mr. P. Weter, of Tirade, Walworth count}', Wisconsin, informs 
me that the peach in his vicinity, suffers in a similar manner, and to such 
an extent some years, that the severed limbs, varying from a few inches to 
two feet in length, are seen lying under almost every tree. We have in 
our country several species of beetles very closely related to the Oak 
pruner, hut no attempts have yet been made to ascertain their mode of 
life. It is very probable that they all have this same habit of cutting off 
the limbs of trees, one perhaps preferring the wood of one kind of tree, 
another, another. This is the more probable, since there is considerable 
diversity in their operations, as shown by an examination of the fallen 
limbs. Thus the scarlet oak, instead of having a hole bored in the 
severed end of its limbs, commonly has half the wood ate away on one 
side of the limb for the length of an inch or more, with the cavity thus 
formed under the bark packed with worm dust, and a cylindrical burrow 
from the upper end of this cavity running upwards in the centre of the 
limb, the same as in other cases. 
It further appears that the female, when ready to drop an egg, is not 
always able to find a small twig with a green succulent end adapted to 
her wants. She then consigns her progeny to the bark of the main limb, 
and the young worm subsists on the soft pulpy matter between the bark 
and the wood, excavating a shallow irregular cavity which is packed with 
worm dust, till it has acquired sufficient strength to gnaw the wood, when 
it cuts off the limb as in other cases. It may, however, be a different 
species from the common Oak pruner, which cradles its young thus beneath 
the bark instead of in a lateral twig. It is usually in the fallen limbs of 
the beech, though sometimes in those of the oaks also, that I have met 
with these worm tracks under the bark. 
The bark of the beech, it will be recollected, is quite thin and very 
brittle, so that it will illy serve to hold the limb in its place if the wood 
underneath is cutoff in the usual manner. And accordingly a remarkable 
modification of this operation will be noticed in the amputated limbs of 
this tree. The worm eats its way down the limb beneath the bark until 
