ON INSECTS WHICH INFEST CONIFERS. 1 23 



XIII. On the Natural History of Beetles and other Insects 

 which infest Coniferw, and suggested Remedies. By Robert 

 Hutchison of Carlowrie, F.R.S.E., Vice-President. 



The insect world, with its teeming myriads of devouring creatures, 

 varying so infinitely in hahits, instincts, forms, and organs, is prin- 

 cipally distinguished as to its functions, which may he said to he 

 discharged with a view to great and general henefit and utility to 

 the numerous species themselves, as well as with the ohject of 

 destroying or removing nuisances which woidd otherwise deform or 

 possihly infect the earth and its inhabitants. Many insects may, 

 indeed, he said to be the earth's scavengers, the primers of nature's 

 too luxuriant productions. But while a counterpoise is thus 

 established and maintained for the purpose of checking any ten- 

 dency to overgrowth in the vegetable kingdom, it not unfrecpiently 

 happens that by the same agency the projects of man, in regard 

 to the cultivation and use of many staples of vegetable economy, 

 are frequently seriously interfered with, and sometimes altogether 

 marred, by the predacious and destructive attacks of many of the 

 species of this great division of the animal world. The study of 

 entomology, and the consideration of its classification into (1st) 

 insects which are beneficial to the growth of plant-life by destroying 

 others in their larva state, which would prove, if unchecked in 

 population and distribution, most injurious to many trees, shrubs, 

 and plants, and (2dly) insects which are themselves parasitical and 

 inimical to the health and development of vegetable life in many 

 forms, is a subject of the deepest interest to the close observer 

 of nature, and especially so to the student of arboricvdture, as 

 well as to every lover of forestry who is practically engaged in that 

 all-engrossing occupation. 



It is with the insect world, in the latter of the two subdivisions to 

 which we have referred, that we purpose now to deal, and attention 

 will be mainly confined in this paper to the most prominent and 

 most popularly known species which attack coniferous trees, and 

 ravage no less seriously the newer introductions of this family than 

 they do our common Scots fir and other older and more commonly 

 planted varieties of Coniferse. 



It has been universally observed that trees of the pine tribe, 

 most frequently affected in their young stage by the attacks of 

 insects, are those which are planted in soil previously cropped by 



