'^430 Billings on the Pine-boring Beetles. 



on the neck ; lower part of neck white ; anterior part of the back 

 and inner short scapulars jet black ; interscapulary region, rump, 

 and tail coverts, bluish ash, the rump feathers tipped with white ; 

 tail hoary cinereous; primaries blackish brown, paler on the inner 

 webs ; secondaries white ; great and small wing coverts white, 

 the latter tipped with black. 



Ventral aspect. Chin black, with a purple iridescence ; upper 

 part of neck blackish green ; lower part of neck, breast, belly, 

 vent, central tail coverts, and sides, white, glossed with flesh 

 colour; flanks and sides of the rump cinereous, speckled and 

 barred with white ; lateral tail coverts white, sprinkled with crim- 

 son on the outer vanes. 



1st primary longest ; length 27 inches ; alar expanse 34 inches ; 

 length of bill from the frontal feathers 2 inches 3 lines ; length 

 of middle toe, tarsus, and nail, 5 inches 9 lines. 



A bird before me in the act of moulting, presents brown fea- 

 thets, appearing through the blackish green ones of the crown 

 and sides of neck ; and white ones through the purplish black of 

 cheeks and chin ; and the outer scapulars cinereous. Ashy feathers 

 through the white ones of the neck ; but in all other respects re- 

 sembling the perfect specimen described. 



In the female the head and nei*k is rufous brown, with the ex- 

 ception of the belly and vent, which are white tinged with flesh 

 colour ; all the other parts which are white in the male are ashy, 

 and the dorsal aspect generally is ashy, tipped with white. The 

 young birds precisely resemble the female. 



ARTICLE XL. — Notes on some of the habits of the pine-boring 

 beetles of the genus Monohammus. By E. Billinos, F.G.S. 

 {Read before the Natural History Society of Montreal, 24th Nov., 1862.) 



The number of insects inflicting injuries upon forest trees by 

 feeding upon the roots, bark, wood, or leaves, is much greater than 

 is generally supposed. Entomologists have ascertained that 

 nearly two hundred species prey upon the English oak alone. 

 In Canada, where there are such vast forests of so many different 

 kinds of trees, there must be quite a multitude of the wood-des- 

 troying tribes to occupy the attention of the naturalist. To work 

 out the history of these, is, to us Canadians, a labor of something 

 more than mere scientific importance ; for there are few countries 



