262 PROTECTION AGAINST INSECTS. 



1. Hylastcs palliatus, Gyll. 



a. Description. 



Beetle 3 to 4 mm. long, of stout build ; thorax and elytra 

 reddish-brown and covered with fine grey hairs ; the former 

 broader than long, strongly constricted in front, densely and 

 coarsely punctured with a narrow median ridge. Elytra with 

 rather fine punctured striae, the interstices rugose, tuberculate, 

 and with a series of short hairs. 



I). Life-history. 



The flight-season is at the end of March and April. 

 Coniferous wood in logs, or stacks of fuel, chiefly when 

 damp and lying in shady places, are 

 selected to receive the eggs. 



The newly disclosed beetles appear 

 from April or May until July ; they at 

 once pair and produce a new brood, and 

 in July new breeding galleries are found 

 amongst the larvae and pupae of the 

 old brood. 



The second brood of beetles appears 

 from the beginning of October, and 

 Fig. i22.-ityto.fc. hibernates in cracks of the bark, 

 paUiatia, Gyll. moss, etc. There are two generations, 



and the species is common and widely 

 distributed both in Britain and on the Continent. 



c. Relations to tJie Forest^ etc. 



The beetle attacks all conifers, but chiefly spruce, and 

 secondly Scots pine, silver-fir and larch exceptionally; only 

 middle-aged and old wood ; they also, both as larvae and beetles, 

 damage the bark and bast. 



The primary galleries are short and hooked, like intestines. 

 They are sometimes forked. The secondary galleries are 

 conspicuously long and irregular, often crossing one another 

 and extending down to the sap-wood. 



Authorities differ as to the destructiveness of this beetle 

 liatzeburg, Konig and Kellner consider it very destructive ; 



