Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and HousesPackard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Science
Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses
Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Insects
The White-pine weevil flies about in warm days. We have found its
burrows winding irregularly over the inner surface of the bark and
leading into the sap-wood. Each cell, in which it hibernates, in the
middle of March, contains the yellowish white footless grub. Early in
April it changes to a pupa, and a month after the beetle appears, and in
a few days deposits its egg under the bark of old pine trees. It also
oviposits in the terminal shoots of pine saplings, dwarfing and
permanently deforming the tree. Associated with this weevil we have
found the smaller, rounder, more cylindrical, whitish grubs of the
Hylurgus terebrans, which mines the inner layers of the bark, slightly
grooving the sap-wood. Later in April it pupates, and its habits accord
in general with those of Pissodes strobi. Another Pine weevil also
abounds at this time, as well as Otiorhynchus picipes (Fig. 241), which
injures beans, etc.
[Illustration: 241. Garden Weevil.]
Cylindrical bark-borers, which are little, round, weevil-like beetles,
are now flying about fruit trees, to lay their eggs in the bark.
Associated with the Pissodes, we may find in April the galleries of
Tomicus pini, branching out from a common centre. They are filled up
with fine sawdust, and, according to Dr. Fitch, are notched in the sides
"in which the eggs have been placed, where they would remain undisturbed
by the beetle as it crawled backwards and forth through the gallery."
These little beetles have not the long snouts of the weevils, hence they
cannot bore through the outer bark, but enter into the burrows made the
preceding year, and distribute the eggs along the sides (Fitch). Another
Tomicus, more dangerous than the preceding, feeds exclusively in the
sap-wood, running solitary galleries for a distance of two inches
towards the centre of the tree. We figure Tomicus xylographus Say (Fig.
242, enlarged). It is the most formidable enemy to the white pine in the
North, and the yellow pine in the South that we have. It also flies in
May. Ptinus fur (Fig. 243, much enlarged) is now found in out-houses,
and is destructive to cloth, furs, etc., resembling the Larder-beetle
(Dermestes) in its habits. It is fourteen hundredths of an inch in
length.
[Illustration: 242. Pine Weevil.]
[Illustration: 243. Ptinus and Larva.]
_The Insects of June._
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