Packard.] 
mSECTS OF THE EOEEST. 
237 
be found in rotten pine stumps. The beetle itself occasion¬ 
ally enters our houses at night. Pine stumps are excellent 
breeding places for this and the borer of the large black 
Prionus beetle (Fig. 181, beetle and pupa), which occasion¬ 
ally leaves its native pine and cuts down our young plums, 
pear trees and grape vines. 
As an example how forest insects may by their widespread 
ravages change the entire appearance of a landscape, I may 
cite the case of the injury committed one season in a 
growth of young pine saplings, or rather bushes, about six 
Fig. 181. 
Prionus and pupa. 
feet high. For several square miles their tops had turned 
yellow, as if they were dying at the roots. But near the 
tops were exudations of pitch, forming large masses. On 
cutting these off, a little caterpillar was found in a hole be¬ 
neath the pitch, and this was without much doubt the secret 
of the mischief. It seemed at the time impossible for one 
or two little caterpillars to do such injury to a large and 
flourishing bush. I have not since seen such an unusual 
fatality in young pitch pines, nor this caterpillar, and am 
now inclined to think that the mischief was produced by the 
- 13 
