44.8 RHYNCHOPHORA. [Xyleborus. 
finely punctured ; elytra simply reflexed at apex and armed with a few 
very small tubercles. L. 25-35 mm. 
Male smaller with the thorax almost round, disciform, and depressed 
and more finely scabrous in front ; elytra subglobose, but depressed on 
middle of disc towards base; tibie scarcely dilated. L. 23 mm. 
Female larger, oblong, subparallel, with thesides of thorax subparallei be- 
hind, and the disc very convex ; the front part also is much more strongly 
scabrous ; elytra oblong ; tibia more strongly dilated. L. 3-35 mm. 
“Tn decaying oaks, &c. ; female very rare, male extremely rare ; Chobham, Surrey, 
one specimen (Saunders) ; New Forest (Turner); the single male in Dr. Power’s 
collection was taken by Turner in the New Forest, on October 10th, 1867 ; very few 
British examples of this sex are known.” 
I have not altered the above record, which was correct when I 
wrote it, but within the last two years the insect has been found 
so plentifully in the orchards at Toddington, near Cheltenham, that 
it has done very serious damage to young plum trees; Miss Ormerod, 
who investigated the injury, records that in September, 1889, the 
females were very largely in excess of the males; among fifty or sixty 
females there was only one of the opposite sex ; in December, however, 
she found a large proportion of males, and, on or about January 10th, 
1890, from a piece of plum stem two inches and a quarter across she 
took seventeen males to six females; Herr Eichhoff has before noticed 
this gathering of the males ; for full particulars as to the method of 
attack of the beetle the student is referred to Miss Ormerod’s ‘‘ Report 
of Observations on Injurious Insects during 1889,” pp. 92—98, and 
Appendix, pp. 125—127 ; the injury begins with a shot-like hole being 
bored in the side of the attacked stem, from which a tunnel runs to the 
pith, and a branch about the eighth of an inch runs across horizontally 
about half or two-thirds round the stem ; from these horizontal borings 
other borings were made up and down the stem, and the injury caused 
by these borings fully accounted for the death of the stem; the only 
real remedy in the case of young trees, appears to be to cut down all 
those that are infested and burn them, as if once attacked they are 
doomed, and the injury will spread from them ; for older trees some wash 
or mixture, which will not hurt the bark, but will prevent the beetle get- 
ting in or out, may be serviceable; a thick coat of whitewash with 
some Paris green in it, or a thick soft-soap wash. with a little carbolie 
acid added to it, has been recommended ; the spread of the beetle may 
be more or less prevented (Miss Ormerod, l.c. p. 126), by removing all 
fallen or injured wood, which, by reason of the sluggish movement of 
the sap, is particularly acceptable to the beetles for breeding purposes, 
and also by placing poles (‘ trap-wood”’) to attract the beetles, and then 
destroying the poles that are infested. In England the beetle has only 
damaged the Plum, but in Europe and America it has done great injury 
to the Apple and the Pear, as shown by its names ‘* Apple-bark Beetle,” 
‘© Apple-twig Borer,” and “ Pear-blight.” 
