Phloeophthoru*.'] BHYKCHOPHORA. 423 



furze be dying, or recently dead, seems the only requisite to its attack. 

 I have found it in furze killed by being cut, and in that which appeared 

 to have died of old age ; and, though preferring branches about or 

 under an inch in diameter, it is found in all from the largest to the 

 smallest. As branches of old and sickly plants die from year to year it 

 attacks them, and probably accelerates the death of the plant. It is 

 equally abundant in broom. The only apparently suitable materials 

 in which I have not found it were a number of furze bushes smothered 

 out of existence by the rapid growth of some fir trees, larch, and spruce. 



"The gallery is formed directly upwards for nearly a quarter of an 

 inch, and then divides into two branches, at first at right angles to each 

 other, but, as they go upward, tending to become parallel. They are 

 usually of unequal length, and one is sometimes absent. The largest I 

 have seen was less than an inch in length, and half an inch would be a 

 fair average. I always find in them a pair of beetles during their con- 

 struction, and would note here the analogy with Hylesinus, where a 

 two-branched burrow is also associated with the habit of both beetles 

 being engaged in its construction. The entrance of the gallery is placed 

 out of sight behind a loose scale of bark, or some slight projection. The 

 ejected frass, which all appears to have been eaten, lies closely agglutin- 

 ated together outside, but no operculum covers the opening. I have 

 several times met with an inverted gallery that is, one going down- 

 wards instead of upwards from its entrance. The eggs are laid along 

 both sides of the branch burrows, twenty-five being a maximum for one 

 side of one branch, and the total rarely exceeding forty. The time 

 occupied in their construction I do not know ; in some kept under 

 observation, about a dozen eggs had been laid in three weeks from the 

 date of commencement of a burrow. The eggs are situated rather closely 

 together, each in a little hollow scooped out of the bark ; and they, as 

 well as the interspaces between them, are covered over with a layer of 

 tine frass, which does not appear to have been eaten ; so that the sides 

 of a completed burrow are formed of this frass, behind which are the 

 The larvie start in every direction from the parent gallery, but 

 tend to travel vertically ; so that, when full grown, most of them do so. 

 The greater part of the broods become perfect beetles in late autumn, 

 and pass the winter at the ends of the larval burrows, slowly eating a 

 gallery upwards or downwards, according to the direction the larval 

 gallery has assumed. I have seen galleries so eaten for winter susten- 

 ance more than an inch long ; the majority, however, eat very little. 



" What becomes of those beetles that escape in autumn I do not know ; 

 their number is rot great. Others, also few in number, remain as 

 larvae throughout the winter ; and I have found odd beetles, and even 

 larva?, under bark from which the broods had apparently gone during 

 the previous year." 



P. rhododactylus. Mr.rsh. One of the smallest of the British 



