GETTING RID OF BEETLES WHICH AFFECT CONIFERS. 81 



side of the branch, and seldom, if ever, makes a second attack at 

 precisely the same place, which is the cause of their being far less 

 injurious to large than to small trees. I find that the wounds they 

 make in the bark of the branch soon heals, leaving the tree little the 

 worse. 



Hyhirgus piniperda is a small dark-coloured beetle, -j 3 g- inch long, 

 and about T J g inch in diameter. It attacks the young trees in the 

 same way as I have described, but upon older trees it has a different 

 mode of working. It bores into the centre of the last formed ter- 

 minal shoot, eats through the pith, seldom making its exit till it 

 has arrived at the base of the bud, when it descends in search of 

 another shoot to destroy in the same way; the shoots thus robbed of 

 their pith soon wither, and hang on the tree for months before they 

 drop off. Five years ago, a number of Weymouth pines under my 

 charge were fearfully infested with this insect, fully half of the ter- 

 minal shoots of the branches were hanging brown, yellow, and sickly 

 by its ravages. I had all the affected shoots cut off with the pole 

 shears, gathered carefully, and burned in a brisk fire. A cure was 

 the result, the trees being now in a vigorous growing state, and 

 apparently none the worse of having had such a quantity of their 

 young shoots ciit off". 



Having shortly described the two beetles, their modes of operation, 

 and the best method of getting rid of the small beetle upon large 

 trees, I shall now detail our method of getting rid of both kinds of 

 beetles in the young plantations referred to. The first thing 

 I did was to pare off all the grass from 8 to 10 inches round the trees 

 that were not affected, and those that were affected, but likely 

 to recover ; this had a considerable tendency to keep the beetles off 

 the trees, and made them easier seen when they were upon them. 

 We then got a few carts of Scots fir branches from a recently thinned 

 plantation, had all the small twigs and the most of the leaves cut off 

 them, then we laid the branches here and there between the plants 

 all over the plantations; the beetles congregated upon and under 

 the branches, and preyed upon them with voracious avidity; a num- 

 ber of boys were set to gather the beetles off the trees and the 

 branches. Each boy was supplied with a small glass phial, sus- 

 pended by a cord from a button-hole of his jacket to allow the bot- 

 tle to hang straight while the boy stooped in search of the beetles ; 

 each bottle had a wooden stopper. The boys, with a careful old 

 man in charge to see that*they did their work properly, searched the 

 branches and trees for the beetles, which preyed in great numbers 



