THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 189 



lieallhy, are making most wood, and the circulation of the sap 

 is most free, it being also dining the damp part of the year. 

 1 have, however, despite considerable investigation, been 

 unable to get specimens of the egg, and so watch the deve- 

 lopment of the larva from the earliest stages. Specimens of 

 the larva have already been laid before the members of your 

 Society, but I forward by this post also some specimens. In 

 only three cases, about January or December, have 1 met 

 with any insect in the bark, between the level of the ground 

 and the roots, at all corresi)ouding to the larger insect found 

 in the wood. On examining those trees with larvae in, with 

 hardly any exception, we discover the bark eaten away, or 

 rather, I should say, wanting, about the level of the ground; 

 from this place to the entrance-hole of the borer in the forks 

 of the roots there is always to be observed a more or less 

 irregular channel or road cut in the bark leading from one to 

 the other, and in this channel I discovered two of the three 

 small specimens of larvae mentioned above. The entrance- 

 hole of the larva is very irregularly placed; sometimes it 

 begins as an excavation along one of the roots at a fork in 

 the rootlets ; sometimes it enters immediately under the first 

 root, hardly below the ground. I have not noticed the entrance 

 of the larva above ground, except in two instances, when there 

 was a hole below the lowest primary in one case and the 

 second primary in the other. I did not, however, satis- 

 factorily determine that these were the same insect, or, even 

 if so, they may be considered as accidental cases. The 

 excavation of the wood of the tree by the larvae need not be 

 entered into, as every one must be well aware of their powerful 

 mandibles and their unlimiled appetites. How long the insect 

 remains in the larva form 1 have not yet been able to judge; 

 but in consequence of finding always two and sometimes three 

 distinct sizes in the insects taken out of a hundred trees, 

 1 imagine not less than two years, and possibly so long 

 as three. The first transformation at present I have only 

 observed in October; but I am half inclined to think there is 

 a double brood, and another transformation about May : as 

 I was not in the colony at that time last year, having given 

 my attention to the question since July last, I am looking 

 forward next month to deciding this point, as unluckily we 

 have many diseased trees to operate on. I enclosed with the 

 larva formerly sent to you a specimen of the pupa ; it was first 



