CURVED WING-CASE TIMBER BORER. 81 



CHAPTER CXX. 



CURVED WING-CASE TIMBER BORER. 



(Platypus cupulatus, Clip.) 

 Order : Coleoptera. Family : Scolytidoe. 



This tiny but destructive insect has been found by my 

 Assistant, Mr. C. French, jun., in timber imported into 

 Victoria for furniture making. The logs are taken to the 

 timber yards, and often stacked amongst other timbers. 

 As the plate shows, this beetle is a very small one, with 

 the terminal parts of its elytra or wing cases in-curved 

 (see Figs. V. and VI.). The timber illustrated is a portion 

 of a log sent from the Malay Peninsula. Importations 

 from this and other places in the East are a distinct menace 

 to our timber yards, as there is a grave danger of the pest 

 spreading to other timbers, and also to furniture, public 

 buildings, shipping, &c. 



The family Scolytidce, to which this beetle belongs, 

 embraces some of our very worst timber-boring insects ; 

 and in Europe the splendid avenues of elm trees have 

 frequently been destroyed by the well-known Scolytus 

 destructor. The method of attack of the pest has been 

 well described by the celebrated naturalists, Andouin and 

 Spence .... both the male and female insects 

 attack the tree for the purpose of obtaining food, burrowing 

 into the trunk. This brings the tree to a state of ill-health, 

 which is adapted for the reception of the eggs and for food 

 for the larvae. The female insect then burrows into the 

 trunk, and there deposits her eggs ; and the larvae when 

 hatched form cylindrical galleries, diverging at right angles 

 from the trunk of the parent, and parallel to each other, 

 within which they also become pupae, and so great is the 

 fecundity of these insects that their countless numbers are 

 soon sufficient to destroy the largest tree." 



