54 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



later the larval tunnels become much more confused. The 

 full-fed larvae pupate in a specially-prepared chamber near the 

 outside of the bark. 



The insects were found in pairs, the male at or near the 

 entrance to the mother-gallery, the female near the end or in 

 the act of boring air holes to the outside ; this work is apparently 

 left until egg laying is completed. In warm sun the beetles may 

 be seen on the bark, but if disturbed escape into the galleries. 



A thing that struck me very forcibly is the apparent high 

 mortality among the insects in the young stages ; sometimes 

 whole broods of half-grown larvae were wiped out by a fungus 

 the mycelium of which filled the borings. 



Donald C. Fergusson, M.C, B.Sc. 



French Pit-wood and Forest Policy. 



The following extract from a report presented by M. Edouard 

 Rizier (Expert Adviser to the Commercial Section in Paris of 

 the Chambre Syndicate des Bois a brialer, to the International 

 Forestry Congress, June 1913), was kindly translated and sub- 

 mitted by Mr John T. Smith. The question of a pit-wood 

 rotation which would be likely to yield material that would 

 simplify classification and transport, and at the same time lead 

 to standardisation of pit-wood supplies, would obviously be an 

 advantage : — 



" Wood as fuel has long been substituted by coal, but, as is 

 shown below, the production of coal is dependent on wood to a 

 very appreciable extent. France (where the production is very 

 limited, only about 50 to 55 per cent, of the consumption being 

 of native coal) raises annually 35,000,000 tonnes (34^ million 

 tons) of coal. M. Pelletier de Martres, in his interesting report 

 on the subject of telegraph poles, shows incidentally that wood 

 to the value of about i franc is required for every tonne of coal 

 produced. This is equivalent to stating that the French 

 collieries require annually wood to the value of 35,000,000 

 francs for the production of coal alone. The price of pit-wood 

 per cub. metre may be taken at 25 francs, delivered at the 

 colliery (yid, per cub. feet), and it follows that for native coal 

 about 1,400,000 cub. metres, or 49^^ million cub. feet, of pit-wood 



