PINE BEETLE 133 
of insectivorous birds and animals, the beetle will be kept within 
due limits, if not exterminated altogether. It does not breed in the 
tunnels it eats in the pith of the shoots.” 
As some reference had been made to myself as a writer on the 
subject, I forwarded a communication, which appeared in ‘The 
Scotsman’ of January 11th, which just puts in small compass all 
which is perhaps needed for common service regarding the life-history 
of the beetle, namely, the two distinct localities of the infestation, the 
egg-laying and feeding of the grubs up to their changes to beetle state 
beneath the bark of the fallen or sickly timber, and the winter shelter 
of the beetles in the Pine shoots, as more particularly noticed by Mr. 
Edward Robertson. I remarked :— 
‘‘T am happy to be able to say that this is one of the forest infes- 
tations that it is easily possible. to keep down by really practicable 
measures based on the known habits of the insects. 
«Your correspondent excellently describes the winter state of the 
infestation—it burrows into the pith of the Fir shoots, where it lives 
in apparent security. But it is not in these burrows that the beetle 
lays its eggs and the maggots feed. The regular course of operations 
is for the beetles to come out in April and May, and the females 
then bore their galleries by piercing a little hole through the bark of 
boughs, young trees lately felled, &c., and there each female gnaws a 
tunnel just below the bark, and lays her eggs along each side of it. 
The maggots soon hatch, and each maggot gnaws its own tunnel 
somewhat at right angles to the mother gallery, and when full fed, 
which is towards July or August, they turn to chrysalids, and thence 
to beetles at the end of their tunnels, and then each beetle bores a 
little hole through which it emerges. It is these beetles which (as 
the next stage in mischief) fly to the neighbouring trees, pierce the 
shoots, and there establish themselves. 
“The great point of prevention is timely removal of the material 
in which the beetles breed. 
‘© Your correspondent is perfectly correct in ascribing prevalence 
of the pest to ‘the enormous amount of blown and decaying timber in 
the county.’ The special breeding-places of the beetles are where the 
wood is still alive, but where there is no healthy flow of sap. There- 
fore decaying branches on or under the trees, and fallen trees, are 
especially maggot nurseries; also where dressing off of bark or out- 
sides of Fir thinnings is permitted in the thinned plantations, and 
this rubbish not cleared away, it is apt to swarm with maggots. 
‘Also where thinnings of young plantations have not been all 
removed, but some heaps of the young trees left, it has been found 
that the shoots of the trees close by have been infested near each heap. 
« Attention to the above points, by clearing all breeding localities, 
