260 



PROTECTION ACJAT-NST INSECTS. 



I). Life-history. 



The season for flight is in May. The ? bores into several 

 kinds of broadleaved trees to lay her eggs, in preference 

 below a branch, but never near the ground, attacking felled 

 wood and young standing trees. 



The larvae appear in June, pupate in July in the secondary 

 galleries, and the beetles emerge in August. They hibernate 

 in the galleries, and there is only one generation. This beetle 

 not everywhere common on the Continent, and till recently was 

 regarded as one of the rarest British" insects. But since 1891 

 it has been destructive in certain Gloucestershire fruit-orchards. 



9 



12 /i 'A 



Figs. 119 and 120. T. dispar, Fabr. 



c. Relations , to the Forest. 



Oak and fruit-trees, especially apple and pear, are chiefly 

 attacked ; also beech, hornbeam, birch, maple, ash, alder, 

 horse chestnut and plane. 



The ? bores a vertical entrance-gallery into the tree, like 

 other species which enter the wood deeply, from which she 

 excavates one or more transverse secondary galleries along the 

 line of one of the annual rings ; from these again are con- 

 structed tertiary brood-galleries which run longitudinally 

 upwards or downwards. In the brood-galleries the eggs are 

 laid in clumps ; the larvae live in them, and do not bore but 

 feed on the exudations of sap and on the fungi which overgrow 

 the burrows. The galleries are bored at the height of the 

 growing season in the outer zones of the wood of perfectly 



