Bnovx.— [nsects Injurious to Kauri Pine (Dammara australis). — 867 
` The difficulties which have hitherto beset New Zealand entomologists, 
desirous of recording facts illustrating the habits of insects, are now being 
gradually removed ; it will be sufficient for my purpose merely to allude to 
one, and perhaps the most difficult to surmount, viz., their inability to 
determine accurately the name of any particular species which may have 
been the subject of special observation. 
The remarks offered in the present instance will, I trust, convey a 
tolerably correct idea of certain beetles that are known to infest Kauri 
timber. 
The Kauri Pine / Dammara australis), when in a healthy-growing state, 
so far as I have had opportunity of observing it, seems capable of resisting 
the attacks of every New Zealand insect with which I am acquainted, 
though subsequent researches may prove it vulnerable to those that are 
being gradually introduced, as, for example, Otiorhynchus sulcatus, an 
European species of the weevil tribe, of which I captured one individual 
whilst it was feeding, amongst the roots of the stunted herbage near the 
summit of Mount Eden (Auckland). 
The gum, after the tree has been cut down and the bole divided into 
logs, serves as a protection against the ravages of numbers of insects 
generally disregarded by casual observers, but which, when favourable 
opportunities offer, soon discover themselves to even the most inexperienced 
individual, by the palpable deterioration in the value of the timber, caused 
by their destructive propensities. 
Perhaps the most conspicuous, and, to owners of Kauri forests, most 
detested beetle, is a species recently described by Mr. T. V. Wollaston, 
under the name Xenocnema spinipes, one of the most important yet yielded 
by these islands, in a scientifie point of view, inasmuch as it connects, in 
the most complete manner, the family Scolytides, with the other groups of 
the Curculionida. 
Solong as the Kauri logs retain their gum undeteriorated, Xenocnema 
spinipes evinces no partiality for them, but no sooner does the action of the 
atmosphere cause its partial decomposition, and destroy, or even lessen, the 
adherence of the bark, than this insect immediately begins its insidious 
operations; in fact, the logs are then in a condition exactly suited to the 
habits of this peculiar weevil. 
The first operation consists in forming irregular galleries under the 
bark, wherein the female at once deposits her eges, which, so far as I have 
been able to ascertain, assume the next stage of their metamorphoses in an 
incredibly short space of time, as I have found both the perfect beetles and 
larve industriously engaged in piercing the sap-wood of logs that could not 
have been many weeks on the ground. 
