HYMENOPTERA. — UROCERID&E. 119 
Hymenoptera and Trichoptera, named them Bomboptera. As the 
larve generally reside in fir timber, the insects are imported into this 
country, and consequently often make their appearance in the perfect 
state in newly built houses, having undergone their transfermations in 
the timber employed in their construction. 
Some species, in Germany, have occasionally appeared in such num- 
bers as to raise alarm in the minds of the ignorant. They have also 
been regarded as the species of insects recorded (in the Abhandl. der 
Kaiserl. Acad. der Naturforscher, 9 th. p.252., 14 th. p.82.) as 
having stung many men and beasts to death in and near the town of 
Czierck. (See Griffith's An. K., part xxxiii. p. 404.) Dr. Klug has 
been at some pains, in his Monographia Sirtcum Germania, to eradicate 
this unfounded assertion, considering the account given in that work 
to be fabulous. 
The sexes of these insects vary considerably in their colour and 
form, particularly in the abdomen and legs, and have hence been de- 
scribed under different names. The species are few in number, and 
of considerable rarity in this country. They frequent mountainous 
districts, especially those clothed with fir forests. Like all Xylopha- 
gous insects, they are also subject to the greatest variation in size, 
some individuals not being one third the size of others. 
The Count de Saint Fargeau has informed me that he considers 
these insects to be parasites, like the Ichneumonide, and that it is 
upon Xylophagous larvze, and not upon wood, that the larve subsist; 
and in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, tom. x. p. 770., he has noticed that 
‘tles débris que nous avons trouvé auprés de sa coque, tels qu’une téte 
écailleuse que nous a paru tres distinctement étre celle d'une larve 
de Coléoptére,” seemed to confirm this idea. The accounts, however, 
which have been furnished by so many authors, and especially by the 
Germans, who have abundant oppertunity of observing these insects, 
leave no doubt of their Xylophagous habits ; and the description which I 
have given of the head of the larva of U. Juvencus would easily cause 
it to be mistaken for that of the larva of a beetle. 
Further notices of the destruction caused by these insects in fir 
plantations are contained in Curtis, Brit. Ent., fol. 253.; Kirby and 
Spence, vol.i. p.212.; Marsham, in Linn. Trans., vol. x. p. 403. ; 
Kirby, in ditto, vol. v., ditto, vol. xiv. App.; Rossmassler, Kollar 
(Forstinsecten). (See also De Geer, vol. i.; Reaumur, vol. v.; Hartig, 
Latreille, &c., for further structural details of these insects.) 
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