20 BONES, 
honeycombed away. From its condition I could not get a sufficient 
slip to make sure of the kind of wood, but it appeared to me to 
be certainly not pine, and much resembled oak. The offensive 
smell, or rather absolute stench, of the infested wood was excessively 
repulsive. 
The figure (5) of bone shows, at the upper part, the manner in 
which it is burrowed into holes or cavities by this infestation. 
The beetles greatly resemble, as do also their hairy grubs, the kind 
often met with in ill-kept larders or stores commonly known as the 
‘Bacon’ or ‘Larder’? Beetle, but are distinguishable from it by 
being chiefly of a snow-white beneath. They (the D. vulpinus) are 
stated to vary from a quarter to just over half an inch in length, and 
of the great number of specimens sent me, those I measured were average 
size,—about three-eighths inch long. The shape is somewhat narrow 
and flattened; the general colour above brownish or greyish black, with 
more or less sprinkling of very short pale fine hairs, and white 
pubescence on the head; a broad band along each side of the thorax 
or fore body being much more thickly covered with Jonger and whiter 
hairs, so as to show clearly like a long white or grey patch. At the 
inner tip at the end of each wing-case is an excessively minute sharp 
spine. The body beneath is snow-white, with a row of bright black 
spots quite at the edge, one on each segment, ‘‘and the apical segment 
has its central region altogether dark, though fringed with fulvescent 
pile.” * When the specimens are in good order, the snow-white tint 
beneath the abdomen with the fairly large bright black lateral spots 
are very noticeable. 
The grubs are very hairy, and of the shape figured at 3, p. 17; 
average length rather over half an inch—my largest specimens were 
a little over five-eighths long—by three-sixteenths of an inch in 
diameter ; subcylindrical, tapering gradually to the tail, more bluntly 
to the head. General appearance brown above, whitish below, ex- 
cepting towards the hinder extremity, where the brown colour turns 
down, as it were, from the upper side, and extends beneath until, at 
the tail, the under surface is wholly brown; a rather brown pale 
yellowish line runs along the centre of the back above, and between 
the segments there is usually a yellowish line also; above the tail, 
which is somewhat bluntly pointed, are two somewhat thorn-like 
processes. Head dark brownish; six claw-legs (with the help of 
which the grubs can walk with wonderful speed) also of some shade 
of brown. +} 
I was unable to find any pupe, which, considering the great 
* «Coleoptera Sancts Helene,’ by the late Vernon Wollaston, F.L.S., p. 56. 
+ Along and most elaborate description of the larva will be found in Prof. 
Riley’s paper, previously quoted, p. 264. 
