794 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
OAK. TRUNK. 
with two smooth raised dots, its thorax with two smooth raised stripes 
separated by an intervening groove; often found basking in the sunshine 
on the bark of the trees in June and July. See Harris’s Treatise page 43. 
The ArrLE Buprestis, No. 3, before apple trees were introduced upon 
this continent, was cradled in the oaks, and is still frequently found in 
them. It is also probable that others of the American species of this 
same genus, of which there are quite a number, whose preparatory state 
are yet unknown, are nurtured in the oaks. 
The larvae of the IIorn-bug, No. 6— very large, soft white grubs, with 
their bodies doubled together in the shape of the letter U, their tips, 
which are thick and of a livid bluish gray color as though discolored from 
being bruised, being held against their breasts—are quite common in the 
damp putrid wood in the centre of old trees and in their stumps, and also 
occur in the decaying sapwood. The larvae also of the big-eyed snap¬ 
ping beetle No. 9, and of several other beetles of smaller size than 
these, are found in the same situations. 
303. Quercitron bark borer, Graphisurus fasciatus, Degcor. (Colcoptera. Ccramby- 
cidao.) 
Feeding upon and destroying the quercitron bark (the inner bark of the 
black oak, Quercus (tnctoria,) of newly felled trees, forming large tracks 
therein which are filled with worm-dust, and in an oval cavity at the end 
of these tracks a white footless grub about 0.60 long and a fourth as 
broad, slightly tapering, and with a transverse oval tawny yellow spot on 
the middle of each ring above and below ; changing to a pupa lying naked 
in the same cavity, and in June coming out, a long-horned beetle about 
0.50 long and a third as broad, of an ash-gray color freckled with blackish 
spots and punctures, and baqk of the middle of its wing-covers an irregular 
oblique black band, the female with a tail-like ovipositor. 
The black oak is most highly valued for its bark, the quercitron of com¬ 
merce, yielding a bright yellow dye. The bark of the dead tree, it is said, 
is not at all inferior for coloring purposes, to that cut from living trees. 
But unless this bark is peeled immediately after the tree foils to the 
ground, it becomes very much worm-eaten and nearly worthless. The 
worms which burrow in and destroy it are produced by a long-horned 
beetle differing remarkably from all the other beetles of this group in that 
the female is furnished with a straight awl-like ovipositor nearly a quarter 
of an inch in length, projecting horizontally backwards from the end of her 
body. The importance of this implement becomes manifest when we 
observe the thickness of the bark of the black oak, with its outer layers so 
dry and hard that they form as it were a coat of mail, protecting the trunk 
of the tree against the attacks of its enemies. Equipped as she is, 
however, the female of this beetle is able to perforate this hard outer bark 
and sink her eggs through it, placing them where her young will find them¬ 
selves surrounded with their appropriate food. The worms from theso 
