28 ON THE LIFE-IIISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN COLEOPTERA, 



The genus PJioracantha comprises a number of laige and hand- 

 some beetles which almost entirely confine their attacks to the 

 Eucalypts, feeding upon the dead wood ; several species are often 

 found when cutting up blocks of firewood sold in Sydney, in 

 wliich the larvie must live for a considerable time. 



I am indebted to the Rev. Thos. Blackburn for the identification 

 of a number of the beetles described, to Mr. C. French for notes 

 with regard to the habits of identical species in Victoria, and to 

 Mr. R. T. Baker for naming the food plants of some of them. 



Macrotoma servilis, Pascoe, Journ. of Ent. ii. 1863, p. 49. 



Larva white, three inches long, slender, cylindrical, with broad- 

 ish head ; mouth parts ferruginous, jaws black, broad, forehead 

 with slight furrow down centre, with shorter one on either side, 

 the whole rugose ; thoracic segments narrow, with fine crossed 

 lines on the summit ; legs small, ferruginous ; first seven abdo- 

 minal segments with an elongate square in centre of upper 

 side, decreasing in length and increasing in width towards the 

 extremity ; eighth segment smooth, cylindrical, narrow, the last 

 longest, smooth, shining, rounded at anus ; on the under side the 

 last two thoracic and first seven abdominal segments with some- 

 what similar but more elongate markings. 



The larva feeds upon the stems of the large Banksias ( Banksia 

 integrifolia), common along the New South Wales coast, mining 

 large cavities out of both living and dead trees ; the chambers are 

 large but irregular in form, the grub when full grown forming a 

 large oval chamber in which it undergoes its transformation. 



Though an immense number of the Banksias about Sydney are 

 riddled with the holes of these larvte, yet the beetle is rarely 

 found, as it generally hides in the crevices of the rough bark of 

 the trunk. The larvae from which my specimens were bred were 

 taken in a section of a dead tree cut ofif on the "Nine Mile 

 Beach," at Gerringong in August, the beetles coming out in 

 December. The beetle is a reddish-chocolate-brown, the face 

 rugose, furrowed between the eyes, and with a coat of short 

 reddish hair below the junction with thorax ; the thorax is 



