THE RED GUM-TREE WEEVIL. 129 



CHAPTER LXXXIX. 



THE RED GUM-TREE WEEVIL. 



{Strongylorhinus ochraceus, Schatim.) 



Order : Coleoptera. 



It will have been frequently observed by persons 

 accustomed to travelling in Victoria that many of the 

 boles or stems of our gum trees {Eucalypti) are disfigured 

 by large excrescences, which, at a distance, have the 

 appearance of a swarm of bees which had settled upon 

 the stem of the tree. Upon closer inspection, however, 

 it will be found that this disfigurement has been caused 

 by the depredations of certain weevils, which form the 

 subject of the present chapter. 



My first attention to the destructive work of this 

 beetle is due to the labors of Mr. C. C. Brittlebank, 

 whose name will be familiar to all readers of this book 

 as being one of our best field observers, and the artist 

 who has so cleverly and naturally drawn our illustrations. 



In the Myrniong district, some miles from Bacchus 

 Marsh, many of the gum trees are either dead or dying, 

 our plate drawn some time since giving but a faint 

 idea of the real damage caused by this beetle. 



At Box Hill, ten miles from Melbourne, my assistant 

 Mr. C. French, Jnr. has found as many as 210 larvae 

 in one branch of the yellow box {Eucalyptus melliodora) , 

 this showing the destructive nature of the insignificant- 

 looking beetle under notice here. 



From observations made on the spot by Mr. Brittlebank, 

 it would appear that the eggs of this beetle are deposited 

 one at a time in a hole made by the female in the bark 

 of the tree, which insect bores into the bark with its 

 "snout;" and, having completed this function, deposits 

 one egg only in each hole, then covering the same with 



