INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. I55 



immense overgrown beetle. It is called by us a carpenter, from its boring 

 large holes in timber, of a regular form, and to the depth of several feet, in 

 which, when finished, it takes up its habitation."^ Seeing the perfect 

 insect come out of these holes, an unentomological observer would natu- 

 rally conclude that the beetle he saw had formed it, and lived in it ; but, 

 doubtless, the whole was the work of the grub. Of all the Coleopterous 

 genera there is none the species of which are generally so rich, resplendent, 

 and beautiful, as those of Baprestis : these likewise, in their first state, 

 there is abundant reason to believe, derive their nutriment from the produce 

 of the forest, in which they sometimes remain for many years before they 

 assume their perfect state, and appear in their full splendor, as if nature 

 required more time than usual to decorate these lovely insects. We learn 

 from Mr. Marsham that the grub of B. splendida was ascertained to 

 have existed in the wood of a deal table more than twenty years.^ 



Another tribe of internal wood-borers belong to the genus Sirex of the 

 order Hymenoptera. Mr. Stephens informs me that the fir-trees in a 

 plantation of Mr. Foljambe's, in Yorkshire, were destroyed by the larvae 

 of Sirex gigas ; while those of another, belonging to the same gentleman, 

 in Wiltshire, met with a similar fate from the attacks of Sirex juvencus. 

 In proof of the ravages made by this last insect, Mr. Raddon exhibited 

 to the Entomological Society a portion of the wood of a fir-tree from 

 Bewdley Forest, Worcestershire, of which twenty feet of its length was 

 so perforated by its larvae as to be only fit for fire-wood ; and being placed 

 in an outhouse five or six of the perfect insects came out every morning 

 for several weeks.^ When fir-trees thus attacked are cut down, it often 

 happens that the larvae of the species of Sirex inhabiting them have not 

 attained their full growth at the time the wood has been employed as the 

 joists or planks for floors, out of which the perfect insect, even years after, 

 emerge, to the no small surprise and even alarm of the inmates. An 

 instance of this, where several specimens of S. gigas were seen to come 

 out of the floor of a nursery in a gentleman's house, to the great discom- 

 fiture both of nurse and children, is related by Mr. Marsham, on the 

 authority of Sir Joseph Banks^ ; and a similar circumstancs, stated by 

 Mr. Ingpen, occurred in the house of a gentleman at Henlow, Bedford- 

 shire, from the joists of the floors of which whole swarms, literally " thou- 

 sands," of Sirex duplex Shuckard^, emerged from innumerable holes, 

 large enough to admit a small pencil-case, causing great terror to the 

 occupants. As the house had been built about three years (the joists of 

 British timber), there could be no doubt of the larvae having been more 

 than that time in arriving at their perfect state.^ Amongst the most for- 

 midable wood-borers with us is the larva of the great goat-moth (^Cossiis 

 ligniperdii') , which attacks willows, poplars and occasionally even elms 

 . and oaks ; and from its large size, and living above two years in the larva 

 state, the holes which it fnakes are a great deduction from the value of the 

 tree, even if it be not entirely destroyed. The larvae of Zeuzera cesculi, 



' p. 310. 2 Linn. Trans, x. 399. 



3 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. Ixxxv. * Linn. Trans, x. 403. 



* This species inhabits the Spruce-fir {Pinus nigra). — Shuckard in Loudon's 3Iag. of Nat. 

 Hist. 1837, p. 632. 



8 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. proc. Ixxxii. j and iii. proc. ii. 

 7 Curtis, Brit. Ent. t. 60. 



