FLAT-CELLED SIIOT-BORER BEETLE. 195 



were for tho most part ai)p!irently full-<^rown, and in many 

 casoH not pure Avliite, but tinj^cd with ctolour, iiiul with the 

 yellow contents of a portion of the length of tho food canal 

 showinjj; distinctly. 



The above points, of the iiatness of the cell and the circum- 

 stance of this brood chamber beinp; partially formed by the 

 gnawinjfs of the larvii), are well described in the followin*; 

 extrac^ts, takcui from tho notes publislied duriiifj; tho present 

 year by ^Iv. 11. i\. Hubbard, onci of the "investigators" of 

 the United States Board of Agriculture * : — " The young in 



this species are assembled in a brood chamber It is 



constructed at the end of a gallery which penetrates deeply into 

 the heart, or remains in tho sapwood, according to tho anu)unt 

 of moisture in tho tree trunk, . . . and stands vei'tically on 

 edge parallel with the grain of tho wood. Tho space between 

 the Willis is not unich greater than the thickness of tho bodies 

 of the adult beetles. The larvjc aid in extending tho brood 

 chamber. They swallow the wood which they removo with 

 their jaws, and in passing through their bodies it becomes 

 stained a mustard-yellow colour. Groat (piantitios of this 

 excrement are ejected from the oi)enings of the colony, but a 

 portion is retained, and plastered upon the walls, where it 

 serves as a bed upon which there springs up a new crop of 

 the food fungus." 



The method of life (as observed in the United States) is for 

 the fertilized females to pass the winter in their brood 

 chambers, and emerge in the spring. They are then attracted 

 to sickly, dying, or felled trees, in the living or moist dead 

 wood of which they prefer to excavate their brood galleries. 

 A crevice or opening in the bark, such as may bo made by 

 other insects or even by a bird, but more commonly tho edge 

 of a wound, or a dead place on a living tree, is stated to be 

 the favourite point of attack. 



Apple and Plum are amongst tho orchard trees which arc; 

 especially recorded as infested by this species of Xi/lclx)!-!!^ ; 

 and in regard to distribution, it is mentioued by llerr Vjichliolf | 

 that ^^ saxesoii is not only distributed over the greatest [)art 

 of Europe, but is also found in tho Canary Islands, in North 

 America, and probably also in Japan. Amongst the bark 

 beetles it is a renuirkably general feeder, for it lives and 

 breeds not only in tho wood of the nu)st dilferent kinds of 

 leafy trees, as Oak, Beech, Birch, Maple, Lime, Boplar, and 

 orchard trees, but also in various of the needle-leaved trees " 

 [as Bine and Birj. 



* Lor. cit. note, p. 193. 



t 'Pie ]<juropiiiHchon IJorkcnkiifcr,' von W. Eicliliol'f, Kaiscrl. OborforHlcr in 

 MulhauBon, i. Elaaas, licrlin, 1881, p. 280. 



o2 



