REPORTS BY THE HONORARY OFFICIALS, 67 
alter the shape of the tree, and result in the scraggy straggling tops 
so familiar to those acquainted with piniperda attack, which 
appearance has earned for the beetle the name of Wood-gardener or 
Forester. 
It is only exceptionally that the beetles winter in the shoots, 
their winter-quarters as a rule being in moss or in cracks in the 
bark, or in holes bored into the bark at the base of the tree. 
Without going more into detail, I have said enough to show the 
application of certain general principles with a view to protection. 
There must be careful oversight of the wood on the part of 
the forester, who should make it an axiom to remove from the 
wood as quickly as possible all felled or blown pine timber. It is 
not always convenient, or perhaps possible, to remove quickly, but 
it cannot be too strongly insisted on that such felled logs, stumps, 
etc., if left unbarked, are favourite places for egg-laying, and every 
such unbarked stem is a direct invitation to the beetle on the part 
of the forester, and an encouragement to a future plague. A 
glance at the Beetle Calendar will suggest the dates before which 
removal of timber had better take place, or when barking should 
be done. 
A cutting out of sickly trees and their removal is also advisable. 
As a remedial measure once the pests have got to work, no 
means can compare in efficiency with the system of “ catch-trees.” 
From February or March onwards till the autumn let there be 
a series of such traps, to be examined at regular intervals, and 
peeled, and the bark burned. These “ catch-trees” may be sickly 
pines standing in the forest and marked, or else trees felled here 
and there at intervals for the purpose. In such trap-trees or logs 
the pine beetles will breed, and in the peeled and burnt bark eggs 
and larve will be destroyed. There must be careful and systematic 
revision of the traps, else the remedy may prove worse than the 
disease. The traps must not be left too long, a new series being 
prepared say every month. How fruitful in destruction to the 
pests this method of “catch-trees” is, I can testify from much 
experience of their use. I have in my collection a piece of bark of 
Scots pine which I stripped from one such “catch-tree.” It 
measures 28 inches long by 12 broad, and in it I count 30 
mother-tunnels, and allowing 100 eggs for each, no fewer than 
3000 beetles might have escaped from this piece alone. 
Description of the Beetle.—A little over ¢ inch in length. 
Glossy black in colour, although red-brown on first emerging. 
