138 PINE. 
to the living Fir trees, and tunnelling up the live shoots, not as 
breeding-ground, but simply as places of shelter. 
Mr. Lambert’s communication is of rare interest as connecting 
unusually severe attack of this infestation with destruction of trees to 
a most unusual extent in this country,—‘‘ thousands of trees piled one 
on another,’’—and this caused by such an unusually violent gale, that 
it stands recorded in Symons’s ‘Monthly Meteorological Magazine’ 
as ‘The Great Gale of the Midlands, of March 24th” (1895),* with 
details of the extraordinary amount of mischief caused in many ways, 
but especially the damage to trees, up to 1100 being blown down in a 
single park; and also to their lying, as described by Mr. Lambert, 
piled one on the other. These circumstances would afford a magnifi- 
cent breeding-ground to the beetles, of which it will be seen they were 
not slow to take advantage, as shown by the attack on the Pine shoots 
in the following year (1896). 
On September 21st Mr. L. F'. Lambert wrote me, from the Hewell 
Estate Office, Redditch, Worcestershire, as follows :— 
‘T should be so very much obliged if you would tell me what the 
name of the beetle is that is attacking our Scotch Firs. I am sending 
you a few shoots to show you the nature of the attack.’’ 
After examination of the plentiful supply forwarded (of which I 
give details below), I wrote at length to Mr. Lambert on the subject, 
and on September 26th received the following reply relatively to my 
suggestions as to presence of the attack being from damage to timber :— 
“One half of this plantation, containing several thousand trees, 
was blown down by the great gale of March 25th, 1895. It took us 
many months to cut out the trees, which were all piled one on 
another; and from your letter I have no doubt that this attack of the 
Pine Beetle is the indirect result of the storm.”—(L. F. L.) 
The Pine Beetle borings were excellent specimens, with beetles 
alive and very active in some of them; and they afforded such a good 
opportunity of noting this part of the year’s attack in detail, and 
especially that several beetles would attack a single shoot, that I was 
at some pains to observe the state of things as minutely as I could, 
and give the notes below, and a figure of one of the shoots, as split 
open to show the borings in the central pith, at p. 181. 
Specimens of damage caused by Pine Beetles boring living Pine 
shoots, sent to me by Mr. L. F. Lambert, September 21st, 1896 :— 
The galleries along the shoots were in different stages of progress. 
In one instance, where the clean and fresh appearance of the perfora- 
tion showed the work had been very recently begun, the tunnel was 
only about three-quarters of an inch in length, and the beetle within 
in very active state; another tunnel on the same shoot was only about 
* See Symons’s ‘ Monthly Meteorological Magazine’ for April, 1895, pp. 41-43. 
