A NATIVE BORER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2110, 2 October 1885, Page 2

A NATIVE BORER.

The following letter appeared in the New Zealand Farmer for this month To the Editor,—For some time back I have noticed a lot of correspondence carried on in your journal and the Weekly News about an orchard pest called the borer. Now I will give you my experience of it for nearly the last /twelve months, in my own small garden at the Thames. The first time it came under my notice (except in print) was last summer. In walking in the garden, where 1 have a few fruit trees, I noticed on one of the plum trees something that I took at first for sawdust, but upon 1 closer examination I found that it was being forced jut of a small hole in the limb of tho tvee. "Ah," I thought, " this is Mr .Boreris it ? Now is my chance to study the gentleman, and find out from whence lie came and what lie will ultimately .become." You may depend upon it Mi - Editor, I shadowed the gentleman veiy closely, and the tree as well, to see if other borers were there. Fortune favoured me one evening as I was looking for nocturnal pests, such as slugs etc., 1 observed what I took to be a m(|th on one of the limba of my plum hard at work. On closer inspection I found it to be a kind of beetle or fly (of 'which I enclos a sketch), making a small aperture in the bark. After watching it for a little time, I noticed that it turned round and deposited two or three eggs in the hole. I thought at the time I would not mind losing a limb or two of tho tree if I could find nut. the life history of this borer that I had heard so much about. After a few days I noticed that the eggs had given forth small grubs, and that they had bored into the wood out of site; this was in January, last. There being three limbs attacked on the one tree, I thought of marking the progress and different stages of development of the insect. Last June, therefore, I cut the first limb, inEide of which I found a white grub about one inch in length, similar to those found in the puriri trees and kauri that has been cut and left to decay, but not so large. I have enclosed a sketch of it. In the beginning of last month I cut down branch No, 2, and after splitting it with the grain of wood, as luck would have, I came upon the.grub changed into the beetle or fly, Anothorstage, I thought, will complete my study of this pest. I i may here mention that I sent you No. 2 f in tho piece of limb I found. last month, by Captain Jones of the cutter Lizette, 1 who promised to deliver it safe to you. Last Friday I cut limb that yras infested with was' rewarded by finding, when I split it open, that Mr Grub had developed into a beetle or fly, a fac simile of the one I first saw at night depositing the eggs in the little hole that it had previously made. And for your own, and your readers' information, I herewith send you it, in the piece of limb as I discovered it, Not being versed in the.scientific names of such beetles, etc., I am unable to givo the name of it, I should like to know the name myself; lan] sgrry to say that in splitting the limb' J spiles what injured the abdpnieivof the beetle with my knjfe by putting a portion of it away, I trust this will be of use to you and others, infollowiiig other experiments with it this coming Bummer.—Chakles Hiu. Thames, Sept. 2nd. 1865 ;

[The name of the beetle vsMmonahirta We have referred to the subject at length in another column, where will be* found a faithful il lustration of the insect iu qyeation, We wish there we more' settlers like our present correspondent, who would take the trouble to make these sfflßftaeful investigations, and record ; through our columns,—Ed. Fatrnfrß^H