180 OTHER DENIZENS OF THE WOODS 



of turning into a pupa. Among the most destructive bark-beetles living in and 

 -under the bark or in the wood itself of coniferous trees, is the " typographer " beetle 

 {Bostrichus typographies), which is about one-quarter of an inch long, and has four 

 teeth on the impression at the end of the elytra. This is a very injurious species 

 to fir-trees ; the trees attacked dying off from the crown downwards, the cones 

 becoming red, and the wood losing its resin, and thus being of little use to the 

 carpenter. It has been computed that a tree of moderate size may hold as many as 

 about eighty thousand of these tiny beetles. In 1783 bark-beetles caused the 

 withering of over two million fir-trees in the Hartz. They swarm in April or the 

 beginning of May, require regularly from eight to ten weeks before they fly 

 and have usually only one brood a year. 



The large typographer (B. stenographus) is also very injurious to fir-trees; 

 it has six teeth on each side of the impression at the end of the elytra, and 

 is about -jSg- of an inch long. The destructive larch-beetle (B. lands) is not 

 only very injurious to the conifer from which it takes its name, but to all 

 coniferous trees, appearing in old stems as well as in saplings. It is about 

 one-eighth of an inch long, and distinguished by the bordering of each side of the 

 impression at the back of the elytra by from three to six small, straight teeth, show- 

 ing one or two larger teeth on the inside of the second and third. Very like 

 the larch-beetle is the crooked-toothed bark-beetle (B. cwrvidens), the principal 

 destroyer of the white pine. The small back-teeth on the elytra of this species 

 are more pointed than in the last, and bent in the males, whilst the female has 

 three or four blunt teeth and a tuft of golden yellow hair on the forehead. This 

 beetle, which is not quite so long as the preceding, bores double-channelled 

 horizontal mother-grooves, like a single or double bracket sign (-^^X). A trifle 

 smaller is the long copper typographer (B. chalcographies), a species nearly always 

 associated with B. typographies. The male has three long, pointed, bent teeth, and 

 the female three short little humps on the border of the impression at the end of 

 the elytra : it is the only beetle which gnaws star-like grooves on pines. On the 

 other hand, the two-toothed bark-beetle (B. Helens), which is about the same size, is 

 the one which makes star-like grooves in firs, and also bears on the circular impression 

 at the end of the elytra of the males on each side a long backwardly bent hook, and 

 generally a small hump above this. The females instead of the impression, hook, 

 and hump, have a small groove on the elytra. Another dweller on firs is the 

 mischievous bast-beetle (Hylurgus piniperda), all whose European relatives, 

 except two, live on coniferous woods, although not in the outer bark, nor deep 

 in the timber, but merely in the bast-layer. They are usually more or less brown, 

 rarely straw-colour, but sometimes pitchy black, with short hairs, brick-red antennae 

 and tarsi, and dotted lines on the elytra, with wrinkled spaces between these lines, 

 and on each a series of protuberances. This species is distinguished by these pro- 

 tuberances extending no farther than the end of the horizontal part of the elytra, 

 as well as by a deep and widely dotted shield. This beetle, -^ of ah inch in length, 

 bores slightly curved holes about twice its own length, which injure the tree by 

 causing it to wither at the ends of its branches, thereby producing some resem- 

 blance to the trees and shrubs trimmed into the formal shapes that used to be so 

 much admired in gardens ; it has hence received the name of the forest-gardener. 



