4r 



is notable amongst the Bylesinidw for not hiding the entrance of the gallery of 

 oviposition. In a stick invested by it, the openings may be readily seen, whereas 

 usually they are well hidden in some crevice of the bark, as for example, as is the 

 case with Scolytus Destructor and Scolytus multistriatus, in neither of which can 

 the opening he detected, except during its formation, and then by the frass lying 

 at its entrance. This results partly perhaps from the bark of the sticks it 

 inhabits being usually smooth. The gallery is longitudinal and rather more than 

 an inch in length, and is lined all round with white frass from the wood, on 

 which the burrow slightly encroaches, and not with frass from the bark as in 

 the other species, makiag the gallery when opened very conspicuous against the 

 dark coloured bark beside it. The eggs are laid on either side behind this 

 frass ; their number seldom reaches eighty. When not crowded together the 

 larvae make a tolerably regular "typograph" and burrow into the wood to 

 hibernate, sometimes to a depth of nearly half an inch. "When the bark is thick 

 they sometimes, like Destructor, hibernate in its thickness. 



Scolytus intricatus, Ratz. is, after Destructor, the most common species, 

 and cannot be considered scarce. It is not so closely allied to the other species 

 as they are to each other. Its outlines are more rounded, and it has less of the 

 quaint truncated form they have. The elytra are closely striated, nearly as 

 intricately as in rugulosus, so that in both these insects they have none of the 

 lustre of the three other species. It feeds on oak, and differs from the other 

 species in habit by making a transverse instead of a longitudinal gallery of ovi- 

 position, which in comparison with the size of the beetle is also much shorter 

 than theirs, being often only about an inch in length. The eggs are laid along 

 the sides and covered by a layer of frass, which is continuous over the roof of 

 the burrow. The eggs are fewer than in the other species, seldom exceeding 

 sixty and averaging much less. The larval burrows often lie perfectly parallel 

 with the fibres of the wood, for nearly their whole length of about six inches. 

 The larva does not follow the usual instinct of the genus of burrowing into the 

 wood to hibernate, but is satisfied with making a tolerably deep depression, so 

 it is exposed on removing the bark, and I observed last winter that the birds 

 did not wait for the weather to remove the bark, but picked it off themselves 

 to secure the dainty morsels within. The only oak wood in which I have 

 observed it, has been in branches broken off by the wind, and not in all these. 

 I have never seen it in felled timber or in the growing tree. It is probable that 

 to suit intricatus the wood must have been cut (or blown down) for some par- 

 ticular time, and as the beetle oviposits in the middle of June, only that wood 

 is attacked, which was separated from the tree at a later period than that at 

 which oak is usually felled. 



An aberration of instinct of this species in confinement is worthy of 

 notice. I placed a number of beetles with some oak sticks, and several of them 

 formed galleries of oviposition, but one of them formed the gallery longitu- 

 dinally as the other species of the genus do, which it never does naturally, 

 and another assumed a habit of still more widely separate species of the 



