HYMENOPTERA. 397 



by the insects to a depth of about a quarter of an inch. These 

 cartridges came from the arsenal of Turm. They had been placed 

 in barrels made of larch wood, the inside of which had been attacked 

 by the insects. It was discovered that it was after having left the 

 wood that they had gnawed through the envelopes of the cartridges, 

 and at last into the balls themselves. In 1833 Audouin presented to 

 the Societe Entomologique de France a plate of lead, from the roof 

 of a building, on which this naturalist supposed that the larvae of a 

 CallidiU7n^ had made deep sinuosities, as they do in wood. Before 

 this, parts of the leaden roofs at Ta Rpchelle had been noticed not 

 only gnawed, but pierced from one side to the other, by the larvae of 

 Bostrichiis capiiciniisA' In 1844 M. Desmarest reported the erosion 

 and perforation of sheets of lead by a species of Bostrichiis and by 

 Callidiuin. In 1843 M. Du Boys presented to the Socie'te d'Agri- 

 culture of Limoges some stereotyped plates — composed, as is well- 

 known, of a very hard alloy, formed of antimony and lead — which 

 had been pierced and riddled with holes by two specimens of a 

 Bostrichus. The holes were a seventh of an inch in diameter by 

 two inches in depth. The stereotypes were thus perforated, although 

 they had been wrapped up in many folds of paper and cardboard. 

 As the printing served for a work called " Les Fastes Militaires de 

 la France," one may say that the brave soldiers received from an 

 insect more wounds than their enemies had ever given them. 



To prove that these insects have really the power to perforate 

 metals as others perforate and pass through woody matter, the 

 entomologist of Limoges made the following experiments. He placed 

 in a leaden box, the sides of which were thin, a living specimen 01 

 the Fire-coloured Lepture of Geofifroy {Callidmin sanguineum\ a 

 Coleopteron which is commonly found in houses in France in winter, 

 its larvae being developed in great numbers in firewood. Above this 

 box he fitted on another, also containing a specimen of this insect, 

 which he shut in with a third box. A few days afterwards he 

 separated the boxes. The middle one had been pierced through, 

 and the two insects were found together, the one which was below 

 having made a hole through which it might introduce itself into the 

 middle box. M. Du Boys made a chemical experiment which 

 enabled him to establish beyond a doubt that the insect which had 

 gnawed the metal had not made it serve as its food. The dried 

 body of one of these insects was analysed. After having immersed 

 it in nitric acid it was completely burnt, and there could not be 



* A coleopterous insect.— Ed. t Also a beetle. —Ed. 



