106 (October, 
Although the jaws are, as usual, directed forwards, their sharp, 
cutting edges are quite in advance of the beetle, when the head is in its 
normal position, and are thus beautifully adapted for cutting the wood 
round the side of the burrow at its extremity, and, by a change in the 
position of the head, may serve to seize the fibre of wood to pull it off. 
When the burrow is some six or seven inches in length, a rounded 
extremity is made to it, in which the female deposits her eggs, and itis 
for the time abandoned, the parent beetles commencing the construction 
of a branch. Eggs are laid as early as the beginning of August, and 
as late as the end of October, and usually, I think, in recently con- 
structed branches of the burrow. I have found single eggs,and groups 
of two or three, at various points in such a branch, but the proper place 
seems to be at the rounded extremity, as here I have found groups of 
nine, twelve, and even of twenty-three eggs. These are simply little 
masses or heaps of eggs lying loose close to the end of the burrow. In 
such burrows are also found the young larve; but before the larve are 
hatched there appears on the wall of the burrow a damp, greyish-white, 
felty-looking coating, sometimes narrowing the gallery to half its width ; 
and it is the undisturbed appearance of this coating which leads me to 
believe such a branch of the gallery is for a time abandoned by the 
parent beetles. I have found such a gallery in November un-intruded 
upon, when other branches of the burrow contained half-grown larve ; 
whether these kept out of it by their own instincts or were marshalled 
from it by their parents I cannot say. But of this there can be no 
doubt: during the autumn months several batches of eggs are suc- 
cessively laid in different branches of one system of burrows by the 
same parents, of which the first are often full-grown before the last 
are laid, and the burrows containing eggs and young larva are respected 
by all the other inhabitants of the burrow, notwithstanding the fact 
that the full-grown larve are very fond of this felty coating (which I 
have seen them scrape off the walls with their jaws with apparent gusto), 
and that there is no physical impediment in their way. 
The greyish felt lining of the burrows consists of a mass of tubes 
belonging to the fungus to which I have already alluded. The tubes 
consist of a very thick wall filled with small rounded bodies (spores ?), 
and similar structures may be found in the surrounding wood, which 
has a sweet heavy smell similar to that of freshly cut oak wood, but 
much more strong. The tubes that exist in the wood are no doubt 
properly to be regarded as mycelium; whether those in the burrows 
are so or an abnormal form of fructification I cannot say. I believe 
that this mycelium is not that of any of the larger fungi, but is probably 
that of some mould, or some species allied to the yeast plant. 
(To be concluded wn our newt.) 
