WOOD-EATING BEETLES. 135 



case with the Hylobius Abietis, a rather large species, 

 which not only feeds on the wood of fir-trees during 

 its larval period of existence, but also does gTeat 

 injury to the same trees in its perfect state, by gnaw- 

 ing the buds, and boring holes through the bark into 

 the young wood. 



But the species most renowned for the destruction 

 of timber trees belong to a small group, distinguished 

 from the rest of the tribe by the shortness and breadth 

 of the rostral prolongation of the head, and in which 

 the antennae are terminated by a solid club usually 

 formed of three joints. One of the commonest and 

 most injurious of the British species of this group is 

 the Scolytus destructor, sl small black beetle, with 

 reddish elytra, which is found abundantly upon elm- 

 trees, especially in the southern parts of this island. 

 In the perfect state these beetles gnaw their way into 

 the trunks of the trees, in order not only to feed 

 upon the wood, but also to form a receptacle for their 

 eggs. The larvae, when hatched, eat their way into 

 the wood, forming small galleries at right angles to 

 that made by their parent ; and as their ravages are 

 confined to the soft growing portion of the wood, it 

 may be easily conceived that when their numbers, as 

 is often the case, are great, the tree, thus attacked in 

 its most vital part, soon succumbs to the united efforts 

 of these little destroyers. 



Still more important are the ravages of some spe- 

 cies of the genera Hylurgus and Tomicus, which attack 

 pine-trees, and which have not unfrequently inflicted 

 the most serious damage upon the extensive forests 

 of Germany, and other parts of the continent of 

 Europe. The most terrible of these devastations 

 appear to be due to a small beetle which has received 



