Phleophthorus. | RHYNCHOPHORA. 423 
furze be dying, or recently dead, seems the only requisite to its attack. 
I have found it in furze killed by being cut, and in that which appeared 
to have died of old age ; and, though preferring branches about or 
under an inch in diameter, it is found in all—from the largest to the 
smallest. As branches of old and sickly plants die from year to year it 
attacks them, and probably accelerates the death of the plant. It is 
equally abundant in broom. The only apparently suitable materials 
in which I have not found it were a number of furze bushes smothered 
out of existence by the rapid growth of some fir trees, larch, and spruce. 
‘*The gallery is formed directly upwards for nearly a quarter of an 
inch, and then divides into two branches, at first at right angles to each 
other, but, as they go upward, tending to become parallel. They are 
usually of unequal length, and one is sometimes absent. The largest I 
have seen was less than an inch in length, and half an inch would be a 
fair average. I always find in them a pair of beetles during their con- 
struction, and would note here the analogy with Hylesinus, where a 
two-branched burrow is also associated with the habit of both beetles 
being engaged in its construction. The entrance of the gallery is placed 
out of sight behind a loose scale of bark, or some slight projection. The 
ejected frass, which all appears to have been eaten, lies closely agglutin- 
ated together outside, but no operculum covers the opening. I have 
several times met with an inverted gallery—that is, one going down- 
wards instead of upwards from its entrance. The eggs are laid along 
both sides of the branch burrows, twenty-five being a maximum for one 
side of one branch, and the total rarely exceeding forty. The time 
occupied in their construction I do not know; in some kept under 
observation, about a dozen eggs had been laid in three weeks from the 
date of commencement of aburrow. The eggs are situated rather closely 
together, each in a little hollow scooped out of the bark; and they, as 
well as the interspaces between them, are covered over with a layer of 
fine frass, which does not appear to have been eaten ; so that the sides 
of a completed burrow are formed of this frass, behiud which are the 
eggs. The larvee start in every direction from the parent gallery, but 
tend to travel vertically ; so that, when full grown, most of them do so. 
The greater part of the broods become perfect beetles in late autumn, 
and pass the winter at the ends of the larval burrows, slowly eating a 
gallery upwards or downwards, according to the direction the larval 
gallery has assumed. I have seen galleries so eaten for winter susten- 
ance more than an inch long ; the majority, however, eat very little. 
““ What becomes of those beetles that escape in autumn I do not know ; 
their number is not great. Others, also few in number, remain as 
larve throughout the winter ; and I have found odd beetles, and even 
lary, under bark from which the broods had apparently gone during 
the previous year.” 
P. rhododactylus. Marsh. One of the smallest of the British 
