368 



Insect Pests. 



chestuut, oak, alder, elm, and hawthorn are attacked by it, and it 

 has also been recorded from conifers. Amongst fruit trees it occurs 

 on plum, apple, pear and cherry. It is said by Ormerod (1), who 

 quotes from Kollar (2), and others that it was one of our rarest insects 

 until 1899. In 1884 I found it doing much harm to plum trees at 

 Kingston-on-Thames, and again in 1887 and 1888 at Cambridge. It 

 has probably always occurred here and there in numbers. 



The best detailed account of it is given by Kollar (2), some of 

 which reappears in Miss Ormerod's Handbook (1). 



The districts from which it has been recorded are Gloucestershire, 

 Worcestershire, Surrey and Cambridgeshire. 



Life-History and Habits. 



The beetle is pitchy-brown to black in colour, the wing cases 

 being reddish-brown, more so in tlie male than in the female ; the 



antenme are clavate and 

 reddish, the thorax granu- 

 lated, the elytra with alter- 

 nate rows of punctures and 

 tine, pubescent interspaces ; 

 legs reddish-brown. 



The female is i- inch 

 long, the male is much 

 smaller than the female ; 

 the female has a large 

 hump-backed thorax, the 

 head hidden beneath it, and 

 the wing cases of the male 

 are much more curved. 



The males are very rare 

 in the summer, but com- 

 moner in the winter. 

 The female commences her attack by boring into the main stem 

 for preference. She then makes passages, and in a small chamber at 

 the opening of each of these she places her eggs, white in colour and 

 longish in shape. Kollar says : " At the end of the entrance, the 

 female makes a somewhat wide apartment and lays her eggs in it in 

 a heap, from seven to ten in number and sometimes fewer." 



As they hatch, some time in May and June, the larvaj proceed 

 along the tunnels one after another so as to partly fill them, and 

 there they feed and pupate. 



[F. Ed aide 

 FIG. 242.— SHOT HOLE BOEER {Xylebonis iUspar). 

 Showing three galleries. 



