Tackard.] 



INSECTS or TIIE FOREST. 



233 



Fig. 177. 



Fig. 178. 



Wine cask 



borer, 

 enlarged. 



Chrysobothris larva. 



Fig. 179. 



Avery slender form is the wine cask borer (Fig. 177), 

 which acts as a state constable, slily emptj'ing the wine out 

 of casks, or previously rendering them unfit for use by meta- 

 morphosing them into sieves through the 

 transforming power of its jaws. To show 

 how abundant these insects may become, a 

 piece of elm three feet long, bored by the 

 Scolr/tus destructor of Europe, was estimated 

 to have contained 280,000 larviie, while the 

 Tomicus monographus^ which does much 

 mischief by drilling holes in malt-liquor 

 casks in India, has been thought to bore as 



:<t^r 



J 



many as 134,000 holes in the staves form- 

 ing a single cask. These little beetles, 

 when soft, flesh}' grubs, are attacked by 

 multitudes of the young of carnivorous 

 beetles, such as Staphylinus and Hister 

 and their allies. 



Often in walking through the woods 

 one's attention is attracted by large flakes 

 of bark peeling off the trunks of pines. 

 They are loosened by the gnawing teeth of grubs, such as 

 are figured here (Fig. 178. a Chrysobothris larva, and 179, 



9 



A giant borer, 

 natural size. 



