INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 237 



of a deal table more than twenty years 3 . In this enu- 

 meration of timber-eating beetles, I must not forget the 

 Fabrician genera, Anobium and Ptilinus, because of one 

 of them (Anobium pertinax] Linne complains "terebra- 

 vit ct destruxit sedilia mea b ;" and I can renew the 

 same complaint againt A. striatum, which not only has 

 destroyed my chairs, but also picture-frames, and has 

 perforated in every direction the deal floor of my cham- 

 ber, from which it annually emerges through little round 

 apertures in great numbers. The utility of entomologi- 

 cal knowledge in economics was strikingly exemplified, 

 when the great naturalist just mentioned, at the desire 

 of the king of Sweden, traced out the cause of the de- 

 struction of the oak- timber in the royal dock-yards ; and, 

 having detected the lurking culprit under the form of a 

 beetle, (Lymexylon navale) by directing the timber to be 

 immersed during the time of the metamorphosis of that 

 insect and its season of oviposition, furnished a remedy 

 which effectually secured it from its future attacks . 

 No coleopterous insects are more singular than those 

 that belong to the genus Pausus, L. ; and one of them at 

 least, remarkable for emitting a phosphoric light from 

 the globes of its antennae, is also a timber-feeder d . 

 Amongst the Hymenoptera there are many insects that 

 injure us in this department. The species of the genus 

 Sir ex, probably all of them in their larva state, have no 

 appetite but for ligneous food. Linne has observed this 

 with respect to S. Spectrum and Camelus ; and Mr. Mar- 

 sham, on the authority of Sir Joseph Banks, relates that 



8 Tn Linn. Trans, x. 399. b Syst. Nat. 5G5. 2. 



c Smith's Introduction to Botany y Pref. xv. 

 u Afzelius in Linn. Trans, iv. 261. 



