114 



TIIIC KNTO.MUI.OGIST S UKCOUD. 



looking structures, directly after the last moult, but they soon get 

 damaged and the tips broken oif (in captivity, at least). Bacot adds : 

 " {Similar hairs arise from the base of some tubercles, and also from 

 the skin surface. There were also some shorter and finer hairs 

 present. There is, further, a coat of very fine hair or down on the 

 iarva ; I could distinguish this, with an one-inch objective, on the 

 sides of the larva, but am not sure whether it covers the whole skin 

 surface, or only exists in patches. Possibly this may correspond to 

 the short (secondary ?) hairs on the shagreen tubercles of Sjiwrinthus, 

 etc." The dorsal area becomes orange two days preceding pupation, 

 the spiracular region remaining green. After commencing to spin, the 

 larva rapidly becomes reddish-brown. The individuals described 

 came from Bourg d'Aru {ride, ante, p. 54). 



Notes on Coleoptera. 



Beetles that desteoy Fouests (Longicornia). 

 By CLAUDE MORLEY. F.E.S. 



There is no time in the life of a tree at which it is not exposed to 

 the attacks of insects, and Coleoptera do their share of the fighting to 

 some purpose. If the seed escapes from weevils, and germinates, 

 there is the larva of the cockchafer, Mdolontha vuh/aris, ready to bite 

 off the young root ; while, at a later period, Plujtophaga devour the 

 leaves, Scuhjtidae destroy the vital tissue beneath the bark, and various 

 others drive long galleries through the solid wood, permeating it in 

 all directions. 



Of the latter class, the Lnnt/icomia are perhaps the most con- 

 spicuous, though, from the fact that they usually prefer decaying 

 trees, they do proportionately little harm. Their place in Nature is 

 that of scavengers of the forest, charged with the task of clearing away 

 the masses of dead and dying trees which would otherwise stifle the 

 newer growth. No sooner does a tree begin to show signs of decay — 

 even such signs as are often imperceptible to us — than it is seized 

 upon by the beetles ; long shafts and tunnels are excavated through- 

 oat its substance, admitting rain and moisture, which speedily reduce 

 the wood to a pulp, serving only the beneficial part of food for a fresh 

 generation of trees. 80 is the erstwhile monarch of the forest laid 

 low, and we again realise that " Life springs up from life's decay." 



The larvffi of these insects are cylindrical (rarely flattened) ; the 

 head is large, depressed, and of a horny texture, armed with powerful, 

 wedge-shaped jaws ; the meso- and meta-thorax are short, and the 

 nine aljdominal segments, sometimes gradually tapering, at others 

 slightly enlarged, towards the anal segment (which is continuous with 

 the body), are each furnished with a patch of corneous scales above 

 and below, and also with fleshy lateral protuberances which serve as 

 organs of locomotion. The galleries seem to be made at random, without 

 any regular plan ; but the larva always approaches the surface when 

 about to pupate, in order that the imago, when it emerges, may have 

 no difficulty in effecting its liberation from the pabulum in which 

 it passes the majority of its life. That the larva should thus approach 

 instinctively the surface, without quite touching it, is both curious and 

 interesting, in that it should know in the first place just where to 



