REPORTS BY THE HONORARY SCIENTISTS. 309 
and wood-chips, the pupation stage is passed. A favourite place 
for the beds is immediately below the whorl of branches, where, 
in an infested plant, one is almost always sure to find several 
clustered together. When the beetles are ready to escape, they 
bore a circular hole through bedcover and bark. 
In the Transactions for 1896 I stated that the contradictory 
statements concerning the generation of P. notatus might have 
their explanation in the long life of the individual beetles, and 
that perhaps notatus would have to be added “to the not very 
large list of insects which possess the power of recopulation and 
repeated egg-laying.” This suspicion has been fully verified, and, 
as a result of experiments conducted at the Royal Botanic Garden, 
extending over three years,! I have proved the following :— 
(1) The Pissodes have a remarkably long life in the imago 
stage. This long life is characteristic of both sexes. 
(2) Copulation and egg-laying are not single acts which, once 
accomplished, terminate the life of the individual, but 
both may be often repeated. The same individuals, 
which have paired and bred in one season, may, after 
hibernation, still further proceed to a new season’s 
reproduction. 
(3) Hibernation takes place in the month of November, and 
ends in March or April, according to the season. 
(4) Egg-laying takes place in all months, from April till 
September inclusive. 
(5) As adult beetles may be met with during all this period, 
the length of time necessary for individual develop- 
ment loses some of the significance it up till now 
has possessed in relation to exterminative measures, 
because a comparatively limited flight-period being 
disproved, corresponding limited and definite swarm- 
periods can no longer be relied on. 
(6) Still, limiting our view to one cycle and the earliest 
laid eggs of that cycle, the generation is typically a 
yearly one. 
(7) There may, however, be three generations in two years. 
(8) As the first imagos issuing in the summer, as a result 
of eggs laid earlier in the same year, are not immedi- 
ately able to proceed to an efficient copulation, but 
1 For an account of these experiments, see the Forstlich-naturwissenchaft- 
lichen Zeitschrift, May and June parts, 1898. 
