210 ASH. 



after they are developed, allowing rain or moisture to soali 

 into the substance of the bark and cause decay. 



The larvae are small whitish fleshy legless maggots, much 

 like those of Scolytus ; the head is furnished with a pair of 

 jaws, by means of which the maggot gnaws its gallery beneath 

 the bark. 



The beetles are about the sixth of an inch long, of various 

 dusky shades from black to ochreous, covered wath an ashy 

 down beneath, and mottled with ashy or brownish scales 

 above. The head is short and robust, horns red, lowest joint 

 longest, and the end club-shaped and pointed at the tip ; body 

 behind the head stout, convex ; abdomen short, ovate ; legs 

 pitchy, and feet red, with the third joint deeply notched.* 



The following notes are from personal observation of the 

 method of attack on trees newly-felled in the neighbourhood 

 of Isleworth : — 



The beetles appeared about the 19th of April, and after 

 wandering about on the bark for a few days the workings were 

 begun by each beetle boring a circular hole just large enough 

 to admit it. Here it was shortly joined by a companion, and 

 pairing took place. 



At about half an inch at most from the entrance, instead 

 of carrying the tunnel straight forward (as with those of the 

 Elm-bark Beetle), the workings forked, and the two galleries 

 were carried on to right and left, until, in about five weeks 

 they were at their full length, and the working was shaped 

 much like a X with a short stem. During this time one beetle 

 was usually to be found in each of the side galleries, but oc- 

 casionally they were together. 



By the 4th of July most of the parent beetles were dead in 

 their burrows, and a few of the grubs, hatched from the eggs 

 which had been laid along each side of the tunnels, had ])egun 

 their borings ; about three weeks later these larval tunnels 

 were to be found completed, and pupae were then fairly 

 numerous in the cells formed by each larva at the end of its 

 gallery. The beetles began to appear about the 10th of 

 August : each beetle as it developed eating its way out, and 

 soon, from the number of these perforations, giving the bark 

 an appearance as if it had been riddled by shot-holes. — - 

 (See my observations published in ' Entomologist,' 1877.) 



Prevention and Piemedies. — The damage caused by these 

 beetles is chiefly to decayed or sickly trees, or to young trees ; 

 the attacks on felled trunks are only of importance by serving 

 to propagate the pest. 



* Fifi. " 8 " of the Ilylurgus inniperda (for reference to this, see Index) gives a 

 good general idea of the appearance of the H. fraxini, a little larger than life. 



