136 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA : 



have been frequently watched, both to chrysalis and 

 imago or perfect insect. The grub must, of course, be 

 taken when ready for the change, and a little experience 

 soon teaches, just as readily as to the silkworm rearer is 

 indicated the time when the caterpillar is about to spin 

 its cocoon. 



In rearing these beetles in this way, there will be found 

 a great tendency to dehiscence, i.e., a splitting of the 

 elytra or wing-cases. This can easily be remedied if the 

 freshly emerged insect be taken while in the plastic state, 

 and the end of the elytra gently pressed and squeezed 

 together by the fingers. They require to be kept at least 

 three months before they are properly hardened. When 

 just captured, their markings vary from pale-yellow to 

 orange ; these colours, however, fade after death into a 

 pale -cream colour, becoming almost white, as shown in 

 Fig. IV. In the natural state, the great cutting power 

 of their mandibles or jaws soon releases them from the 

 puparium, which is seldom over an inch from the surface 

 of the tunnel or branch. 



Mr. Illidge speaks of this beetle as being confined to the 

 native fig trees, but many years ago I received a specimen 

 from the Clarence River, New South Wales. I was 

 informed that the specimen sent had been cut out of the 

 living cedar trees, and I have therefore included this pest, 

 as large quantities of cedar logs are constantly arriving 

 here from New South Wales and Queensland. 



The large family of the Longicorn or long-horned beetles 

 comprises some of the most destructive of boring insects, 

 and, as before stated, it is necessary to carefully watch all 

 oversea shipments of timber in logs, some of the worst 

 of the American and European kinds of insects having 

 been already found on our wharfs and in our timber 

 yards. As an example of the danger of introducing borer 

 in foreign timbers, I may mention a case which not long 

 since happened at one of the wharfs on the Lower Yarra , 

 when a European Longicorn beetle, Clytus, bored some 



