400 THE INSECT WOELD. 



been pierced through by the larvae of the Sirex during the 

 sojourn of the French troops in the Crimea. Some of these 

 insects were still shut up in the gallery which they had hollowed 



Fig. 378. Sirex gigas. 



out in the metal. M. Dumeril (and this was one of the last works 

 of that venerable and learned naturalist) wrote a Report on this 

 subject, in which were recorded many analogous instances. He 

 quoted as an example, that M. le Marquis de Breme, in 1844, 

 showed to the Soeiete Zoologique many cartridges in which the 

 balls had been perforated by the insects to a depth of about a 

 quarter of an inch. These cartridges came from the arsenal of 

 Turin. They had been placed in barrels made of larch wood, the 

 inside of which had been attacked by the insects. It was dis- 

 covered that it was after having left the wood that they had 

 gnawed through the envelopes of the cartridges and at last the 

 balls themselves. In 1833 Audouin presented to the Societe 

 "Entomologique de France a plate of lead, from the roof of a build- 

 ing, on which this naturalist supposed that the larvae of a Callidium* 

 had made deep sinuosities, as they do in wood. Before this, parts 

 of the leaden roofs at La Rochelle had been noticed not only gnawed, 

 but pierced from one side to the other, by the larvae of Bostrichus 

 capudnas.^ In 1844 M. Dumarest reported the erosion and* 

 perforation of sheets of lead by a species of Bostrichus and by the 

 Callidium. In 1843 M. Du Boys presented to the Societe d'Agri- 



* A Coleopterous insect. ED. f Also a beetle. ED. 



