INSECTS AND PLANTS 37 



entrance to each tunnel by the mother beetle after she has 

 deposited her eggs. This layer of sap forms a suitable 

 nutrient medium for a fungus, Nonilia Candida, which, 

 with the exception of two or three millimetres near the 

 outer opening, completely fills the burrow by the time 

 tunnelling operations are complete. The mother beetle 

 then removes the wads, placed at the entrance of each side 

 chamber, and the larvae emerge to feed on the fungus fare 

 provided for them. It must not be supposed that this 

 fungus growth arises from the sap, or that it comes into 

 being in some inexplicable manner; it is taken into the 

 tunnel by the mother beetle. Fungi do not form seeds like 

 the flowering plants, but they are propagated by exceedingly 

 minute structures, called spores. These spores have resistant 

 coats, so that they can be carried in the gizzard of the 

 mother beetle for as long as two and a half months without 

 suffering any damage, and this, in fact, is the way they are 

 carried. When the larvae are fully fed they pass into the 

 pupal stage, which extends over ten to fourteen days, when 

 the young beetles emerge to pass the winter in the tunnel. 

 A burrow, opened in the winter, will show no eggs, larvae 

 or pupae, but a number of hibernating adults, both male and 

 female, all lying witli their heads towards the inner part 

 of the burrow. In the spring mating takes place, and the 

 females, their gizzards stored with fungus spores for the 

 nutriment of the future generation, sally forth in quest of 

 a suitable tree in which to rear their young. 



Beetles of the Cerambycidw family are also notorious for 

 their wood-boring propensities, as are also some of the 

 Lepidoptera. Plate II. shows the male of one of our 

 commonest boring moths, the wood leopard moth, Zeuzera 

 cesculi ; he is resting at the end of a twig, drying his wings, 

 for he has just emerged from the pupa case, which can be 

 seen projecting from the twig below him. Of a greyish- 

 white colour, spotted with bluish-black markings, this moth 

 is a beautiful, though, withal, destructive insect. The large 



