RAVAGES OF A RARE SCOLYTID BEETLE IN THE SUGAR MAPLES OF NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK.
About the first of last August (1882) I noticed that a large percentage of the undergrowth of the sugar maple (_Acer saccharinum_) in Lewis County, Northeastern New York, seemed to be dying The leaves drooped and withered, and finally shriveled and dried, but still clung to the branches.
The majority of the plants affected were bushes a centimeter or two in thickness, and averaging from one to two meters in height, though a few exceeded these dimensions. On attempting to pull them up they uniformly, and almost without exception, broke off at the level of the ground, leaving the root undisturbed. A glance at the broken end sufficed to reveal the mystery, for it was perforated, both vertically and horizontally, by the tubular excavations of a little Scolytid beetle which, in most instances, was found still engaged in his work of destruction.
At this time the wood immediately above the part actually invaded by the insect was still sound, but a couple of months later it was generally found to be rotten. During September and October I dug up and examined a large number of apparently healthy young maples of about the size of those already mentioned, and was somewhat surprised to discover that fully ten per cent. of them were infested with the same beetles, though the excavations had not as yet been sufficiently extensive to affect the outward appearance of the bush. They must all die during the coming winter, and next spring will show that, in Lewis County alone, hundreds of thousands of young sugar maples perished from the ravages of this Scolytid during the summer of 1882.
Dr. George H Horn, of Philadelphia, to whom I sent specimens for identification, writes me that the beetle is _Corthylus punctatissimus_, Zim, and that nothing is known of its habits. I take pleasure, therefore, in contributing the present account, meager as it is, of its operations, and have illustrated it with a few rough sketches that are all of the natural size, excepting those of the insects themselves, which are magnified about nine diameters.
The hole which constitutes the entrance to the excavation is, without exception, at or very near the surface of the ground, and is invariably beneath the layer of dead and decaying leaves that everywhere covers the soil in our Northern deciduous forests. Each burrow consists of a primary, more or less horizontal, circular canal, that passes completely around the bush, but does not perforate into the entrance hole, for it generally takes a slightly spiral course, so that when back to the starting point it falls either a little above, or a little below it--commonly the latter (see Figs. 1 and 2).