SCITAMINE^E SCOLYTUS. 



in times of scarcity. Some of the other species are 

 used for chair and mat making. 



SCTTAMINEA'. A natural order of plants, con- 

 taining eleven genera and one hundred and twenty -six 

 species. These last are mostly natives of the wanner 

 parts of the world, and are stemmed or stemless herbs 

 with long broad leaves, and bearing white, yellow, or 

 red flowers, often of great beauty and fragrance. 

 They are often large herbs, and even tree-like plants, 

 with perennial, tuberous, or fasciculated fibrous roots. 

 The stems are mostly round and simple, the axis 

 being occasionally abortive ; the leaves alternate, 

 vaginant, and wing-nerved. The flowers united ; the 

 perianth superior, of six pieces, and irregular ; the 

 three outer ones like sepals, and the inner like petals. 

 The stamens six, one or more often becoming like 

 petals, and barren ; the anthers one or two-celled ; 

 the pollen powdery ; the germen inferior, three-celled 

 or one-celled. Seeds many, style simple ; stigma 

 simple, or three-lobed ; and the i'ruit capsular. The 

 genera included in this order are, Globba, Mantisia, 

 Curcuma, Roscoea, Kcempferia, Zingiber. Amomurn, 

 Costus, Hellenia, Alpinia, Hedychium. 



SCOLIIM (Leach). A family of fossorial hy- 

 menopterous insects, having the collar either arch- 

 shaped and extending to the base of the fore wings, 

 or transversely square, legs short, thick, and armed 

 with many spines, with the thighs curved near the 

 tips, the antenna; shorter than the head and thorax in 

 the females, but longer and straight in the males. 

 These insects are for the most part inhabitants of 

 tropical or hot countries, and some of them attain a 

 very large size, being amongst the most bulky of the 

 Hymenoptera. They are generally found in sandy 

 districts, and the structure of the legs clearly indicates 

 them to be fossorial. The genera are, Tiphia, My&ne, 

 Meria, and Scolia : the first only being an inhabitant 

 of this country. The genus Tengyra, hitherto placed 

 in this family, has been ascertained to be the male of 

 Methnca, one of the Miitillidce. 



SCOLOPENDRA (Linnaeus). A genus of apter- 

 ous insects, consisting of the species generally called 

 Centipedes. Seethe articles CHILOPODA and CENTI- 

 PEDE. 



SCOLYMUS (Linnteus). A genus of annual and 

 perennial herbs, natives of Barbary and the south of 

 Europe, called in English lists the golden thistle. Of 

 course the genus belongs to Composite. 



SCOLYTUS(Geoffroy ; ECCOPTOGASTER, Herbst). 

 A genus of small but very destructive coleopterous 

 insects, belonging to the family Bostrichida;, or more 

 properly Scolylidce, having the antennae terminated by 

 a large flat club commencing at the ninth joint, the 

 abdomen beneath obliquely and abruptly truncate, 

 the tibiue terminated by a recurved spine, &c. There 

 are several species of this genus of which the charac- 

 ters are not sufficiently determined, neither does it 

 appear, from the recent memoir of Dr. Erichson, that 

 the specific name Destructor, usually given in this 

 country to the elm-destroying species, has been cor- 

 rectly applied. Without entering into the question 

 of these specific names, we shall confine our subse- 

 quent observations to the insect above mentioned, 

 and which, from the devastation which at the present 

 time it is committing upon the elms in the public 

 parks, gardens and promenades, both in this country 

 and in France, may be considered as a public nuisance. 

 This insect is generally almost or quite one-fourth of 

 an inch in length, of a black colour and shining, with 



017 



the antennae and tarsi reddish, and the elytra punc- 

 :ate-striate. It has been well figured by Mr. Curtis 

 in the first volume of his British Entomology. 



There has long been considerable discussion as to 

 whether this insect attacked and destroyed trees 

 which were in a healthy state, although it was admitted 

 on all hands that they never attack dead trees. In 

 the year 1825 a fine avenue of elms was destroyed in 

 Camberwell Grove, which gave rise to a chancery 

 suit between the inhabitants and the proprietors of 

 ihe gas works, from which the neighbourhood was 

 supplied with gas, which was supposed to be the 

 cause of the mischief. On this occasion the general 

 conclusion of persons employed to examine the trees 

 was, that other causes either than the gas or the 

 insects induced the decay of the trees ; but it was 

 not until the last year or two that the natural history 

 of the insect, which could alone lead to a satisfactory 

 view of the subject, has been entomologically studied 

 by Mr. Spence and M. Audouin of Paris, the latter 

 of whom has published a notice on the subject in the 

 Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France, for 

 the past year (1836). The observations of Mr. Spence 

 have been communicated to the Entomological Society 

 of London, and the result thereof to Mr. Loudon, 

 who has embodied them in the article Ulmus in his 

 very valuable work, the Arboretum Britannicum, for 

 the last month ; and, from the importance of the sub- 

 ject, we trust that we shall be excused for communi- 

 cating the following practical extract from that work. 

 " It is quite true, as Mr. Denson maintains, that the 

 female scolyti never deposit their eggs in trees per- 

 fectly healthy, but it is equally true that both they 

 and the males pierce young and healthy trees for the 

 sake of eating the inner bark, which constitutes their 

 food ; and that the numerous holes which they thus 

 cause, partly from the loss of sap which exudes from 

 them, and partly from the effect of rain which lodges 

 in them, in a few years bring the trees in which they 

 occur into that incipient state of ill health, in which 

 the female selects them for laying her eggs just as in 

 trees beginning to decay naturally, and thus healthy 

 trees are effectually destroyed by the combined opera- 

 tions, first and last, of the Scolyti of both sexes, though 

 not in consequence of the sole deposition of the eggs 

 of the female." This explanation, first detected by 

 M. Audouin, and subsequently confirmed in numerous 

 instances by Mr. Spence, in the boulevards of many 

 of the towns of the north of France, from Dunkirk to 

 St. L6 and Granville, satisfactorily reconciles the con- 

 flicting opinions of previous observers, and proves 

 that hundreds of young trees may be brought into an 

 incipient state of decay by the Scolyti without con- 

 taining a single egg. 



" It is scarcely possible," continues Mr. Loudon, 

 " to overvalue in an economical point of view the im- 

 portance of M. Audouin's discovery, which if it had 

 been formerly known and acted upon might have 

 saved the greater part of the fine elms in the prome- 

 nades of many of the principal cities in the north of 

 Europe, which have fallen victims to the ravages of 

 Scolytits destructor, as well as 60,000 young oaks in the 

 Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, which it has been 

 recently necessary to cut down in consequence of 

 the attacks of another insect of the same tribe (S. 

 pygnxEus}. The practical directions to which it leads, 

 in all cases where there is reason to suspect the pre- 

 sence of Scolyti, are very simple, and may be briefly 

 expressed as follows. 



