70 PINE. 
during the life-time of my late father), and occasionally saw recently 
felled trunks from the Fir plantations thoroughly infested with Sirex, 
of the species gigas and also juvencus. On one occasion I saw as many 
as twelve to twenty specimens of gigas captured in a few hours as they 
came out of a Larch trunk lying in the home farm wood-yard, and 
numbers of very large ichneumon flies piercing so firmly into the 
infested log with their ovipositors, that they were not always able 
to withdraw them. Of these I cannot speak certainly as to species, 
for in those days I had not the requisite works or assistance for 
identification. ' 
In 1890 I had observations of the 9. gigas being observed as doing 
much harm in Lord Meath’s woods at Kilruddery, Bray; likewise from 
timber at Wells, Gorey, Wexford; and specimens were also sent from 
near Hacketstown, Carlow, all localities on the east coast of Ireland, 
and so far as I am aware the presence of the insect had not been 
recorded as observed in Ireland previously. 
In the past season I was favoured by the following note of great 
prevalence of grubs of the ‘‘Giant Sirex” in Larch by Mr. Wm. 
Forbes, of Swinton, Masham, Yorkshire. Mr. Forbes observed :— 
‘‘T am sending specimen of . . . also the larva of the Giant Sirex. 
This last-named insect is doing an enormous amount of damage in 
the Larch plantations under my charge. I am going to cut down 
every infested tree I find, and insist upon having the fencing tarred, 
and the ends of the galleries stopped up with Burgundy pitch. There 
is not a creosoting plant on the estate, if there had been, I should have 
tried creosoting the rails and posts. Every slab must be burned to 
destroy eggs or larve.”—(W. F.)* 
An interesting point regarding the (possibly) dangerous destructive- 
ness of the tunnelling of Sirex grubs in timber, which has not, I 
believe, been often brought forward, is their occasional presence under- 
eround in coal-mines; and regarding this, on May 26th, Mr. Malcolm 
Burr, F.E.S., writing from Dormans Park, East Grinstead, favoured 
me with the following observation :— 
‘‘T enclose you a Sirex gigas that may interest you, received from 
Mr. Nath. M. Griffith, of Ruabon, a mining engineer, who tells me 
they find them underground in the collieries in that district. They 
are said to burrow holes in the timber used for prop-wood, and are 
supposed to come with the timber from Norway. I have taken the 
species near Oxford.” 
* In reply to Mr. Forbes’s request for identification of the grub sent, I men- 
tioned that it was certainly that of a Sirex; but the larve of the gigas and of the 
juvencus are so very similar in appearance, that, as the grub was not living but 
preserved in spirit, I could not pronounce with certainty as to species. For 
practical purposes, however, this was unnecessary, the habits of the two kinds 
being so very similar. 
