136 DESTKUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



"cut-branches," as Entomologists term them, much 

 easier of detection, and even with this advantage it takes 

 a fairly well-trained eye to find them. 



In this family of the Coleoptera^ or beetles, the males 

 are usually much smaller than the females (see Figs. III. 

 and IV.), the whole group, with but comparatively few 

 exceptions, being very destructive to timber even of the 

 hardest kinds, the larvae being furnished with very power- 

 ful jaws Avitli which they gnaw the wood of the trees 

 attacked. When the perfect insect emerges from the 

 wood, which it does by eating its way out, the wing-cases 

 and other parts soon harden by exposure to the air which 

 enables the beetles to take wing, being mostly nocturnal 

 in their flight, in a comparatively short time after seeing 

 the light. As to how long these grubs, which by the 

 way are legless, remain in the wood, I cannot say, but 

 have kept them for over twelve months before the perfect 

 insect has emerged, so that it will be seen that when 

 working all this time in a tree great damage must ensue. 

 When handled the beetles, which are the colour of those 

 here figured, make a peculiar squeaking noise and will 

 make an attempt to bore into the closed hand which is 

 holding them. This species is by no means confined to 

 Banksia trees, as its larvae are very destructive also to 

 wattles, boring and tunnelling in all directions. As a 

 rule the grubs of this beetle feed, as I have before stated, 

 in the smaller branches of the tree, but in another species 

 {JJracantlius simulans) they bore right down the stem 

 into the main tap root underground, a particular kind of 

 native tree aster being their favorite food. A third 

 species ( U. bivitta) feeds in several woods including that 

 of the common European Furze ( Ulej;) which it rapidly 

 destroys. A fourth, a large and fine species, has, during 

 the last few years been found destroying orange trees on 

 the Richmond river in New South Wales, and has l)een 

 described by the late Mr. S. Ollift' as U. cryptophagus. 



When trees of any kind are attacked by longicorn 

 larv£e, it is astonishing in what a comparatively short 



