156 London Insects. 



the Type-writing Beetle have at times been as serious 

 as plagues of locusts. In the Hartz forests alone, 

 according to Kirby and Spence, these Beetles for 

 delivery from which, by-the-bye, there was a special 

 prayer in the old German liturgies killed in one 

 visitation as many as a million and a half of fir 

 trees. 



In another year, it was said, the mines must have 

 been closed, and the country for the time ruined ; 

 but happily, just before it was too late, the Beetles 

 took it into their heads to migrate "in swarms like 

 Bees " into other parts where they were probably no 

 more welcome. 



But compared with the much smaller insect, the 

 Phylloxera, a comparatively recent importation from 

 America, the Type-writing Beetle is a harmless 

 creature. A French writer, basing his calculations 

 on official statistics, lately estimated the damage 

 done by these tiny creatures in French vineyards 

 only, during the thirteen years from 1875 to 1888, 

 at something like four hundred million pounds 

 sterling. 



Before saying good-bye to the poor old sick elms 

 in Kensington Gardens, it may be worth mentioning 

 one other point of melancholy interest in connection 

 with them, though it has nothing to do with insects. 

 Many of them, where the bark has been pulled off 

 by mischievous boys, will be seen to be veined under 

 the bark for several feet above the roots with a 

 curious narrow, flat, dry growth of dark colour, not 

 thicker than paper, but very tough, and clinging so 

 closely as to require a knife to separate it from the 

 wood. 



"The growth," writes Mr. Thistleton Dyer, to whom 

 a slip was sent for submission to the learned autho- 



