282 FAMILY CERAMBYCIDAE 



The beetle appears on the wing in the forest some time in June, 

 probably first issuing about the middle of the month. 

 Life History. The female oviposits in June and July, the eggs being 



laid in crevices of the thick bark of the tree. The grubs 

 on hatching out bore down to the bast layer, and feed at first entirely in 

 this, eating out a winding gallery. With the growth of the grub this gallery 

 increases in depth and width and grooves the sapwood as well as removing 

 all the inner bast layer of the bark. These galleries differ to some extent 

 in appearance, being taken either straight up parallel to the long axis of 

 the tree, or winding about indefinitely with a good deal of horizontal 

 direction (fig. ic in plate). The larval galleries are always packed with a 

 mass of wood excreta and dust ejected by the grubs, which fills them, and 

 owing to their darker brown colour renders them conspicuous objects in the 

 inner bast and on the outer sapwood. The winter is passed in the half- 

 grown larval stage, the grub remaining at the end of its tunnel in a semi- 

 comatose condition, and not feeding during the colder and frosty months of 

 this season. With the advent of spring the larva wakes up, recommences 

 feeding, and carries the larval gallery in the bast and sapwood for some 

 distance further. When full-fed it bores down into the sapwood, eating 

 out a tunnel about three-quarters of an inch to one inch in length. This 

 tunnel is carried down either at right angles or at an acute angle to the 

 surface of the sapwood, and ends in a chamber of two or three times the 

 diameter of the tunnel, which is eaten out parallel to the long axis of the tree ; 

 this chamber is the pupal chamber, and the larva changes to a pupa in it 

 (vide fig. id). The head of the pupal chamber is always blocked with 

 a mass of wood fibres, and the larva may close the entrance to it with 

 a similar mass before pupating. The grub changes to a pupa towards 

 the end of April, and about six weeks are spent in the pupal and imma- 

 ture beetle stages. When mature the beetle crawls out of the pupal 

 chamber and up the tunnel made by the larva in the sapwood, this tunnel 

 as well as the pupal chamber being always quite free of wood-dust and 

 larval excreta, and bores its way through the bark, and so escapes from the 

 tree. After pairing the female lays the eggs of the next generation in the 

 bark of fresh trees. The insect passes through only one life-cycle or 

 generation in the year. 



It will be seen from a study of the life histories of the buprestids Capnodis 



and Anthaxia (pp. 202, 212), and of this longicorn, all of 



Damage Committed whom j f t th hir - th t th j consider- 



in the Forest. . . J 



able similarity in the method of attack of these beetles. 



The egg is laid in crevices of the bark of the tree, and the grub on hatching 

 out feeds in the bast and sapwood. If the insects are plentiful in a tree 

 they will in time destroy all the bast layer and the tree will die. And 

 this is the danger to which the chir pine is subject from these insects. 

 The beetles attack the tree from the sapling stage upwards, and are at 

 times to be found in considerable numbers. Only green, sickly, or dying 



