HYMENOPTERA, 399 
balls which had been pierced through by the larve of the Sirex 
during the sojourn of the French troops in the Crimea, Some of 
these insects were still shut up in the gallery which they had 















Fig. 378.—Sirex gigas. 
hollowed out in the metal. M. Dumeril (and this was one of the 
last works of that venerable and learned naturalist) wrote a Report 
on this subject, in which were recorded many analogous instances. 
He quoted, as an example, that M. le Marquis de Bréme, in 1844, 
showed to the Soeiété Zoologique many cartridges in which the 
balls had been perforated by the insects to a depth of about a 
quarter of an inch. These cartridges came from the arsenal of 
Turin. They had been placed in barrels made of larch wood, the 
inside of which had been attacked by the insects. It was dis- 
covered that it was after having left the wood that they had 
gnawed through the envelopes of the cartridges, and at last into 
the balls themselves. In 1833 Audouin presented to the Société 
Entomologique de France a plate of lead, from the roof of a 
building, on which this naturalist supposed that the larvee of a 
Callidium* had made deep sinuosities, as they do in wood. Before 
this, parts of the leaden roofs at La Rochelle had been noticed 
not only gnawed, but pierced from one side to the other, by the 
larvee of Bostrichus capucinus.t In 1844 M. Desmarest reported 
the erosion and perforation of sheets of lead by a species of 
Bostrichus and by Callidium. In 1843 M. Du Boys presented to 
* A Coleopterous insect.—Ep. t+ Also a Beetle.—Ep. 
