﻿6 [June, 



during the early spring months. It is about the size of O. thapsus, hut, 

 unlike any of our other species, is uniformly set with greenish-grey 

 hairs, with a black discal and smaller sub-apical spot on the suture of 

 the elytra. 



Tomicus atttogbaphtts, Eatz., Forst., i., 160, 7. My friend, Mr. T. 

 Wilkinson, of Scarborough, has sent this fine species to me to be 

 named. It was taken by Mr. Lawson, of the same place, about five 

 weeks ago, in tolerable plenty, in some young larch trees in a fir plan- 

 tation about a mile and a half from Scarborough, where, from the 

 appearance of the trees, it must have been very abundant last year. 

 It belongs to the sub-genus Dryoccetes, Eich., and is allied to villosus, 

 being larger and especially broader than that common insect, with the 

 hairs not so stout or long, the thorax broader and shorter, the sutural 

 stria not so well defined, the apex of the elytra less abruptly retuse, &c. 



7, Park Field, Putney, S.W. 

 IZth May, 1869. 



Note on the habits of Phlosophthoms rhododactylus and Hylastes obscurus. — In 

 May, and earlier or later, according to the season, Phlosophthorus rhododactylus 

 makes the galleries in which its eggs are deposited, in the bark of Furze (Ulex 

 europaius). That the furze be dying, or recently dead, seems the only requisite to 

 its attack. I have found it in furze killed by being cut, and in that which appeared 

 to have died of old age ; and, though preferring branches about or under an inch 

 in diameter, it is found in all — from the largest to the smallest. As branches of 

 old and sickly plants die from year to year it attacks them, and probably accelerates 

 the death of the plant. It is equally abundant in Broom (Cytisus scoparius). The 

 only apparently suitable materials in which I have not found it were a number of 

 furze bushes smothered out of existence by the rapid growth of some fir trees, 

 larch, and spruce. 



The gallery is formed directly upwards for nearly a quarter of an inch, and 

 then divides into two branches, at first at right angles to each other, but, as they 

 go upward, tending to become parallel. They are usually of unequal length, and 

 one is sometimes absent. The longest I have seen was less than an inch in length, 

 and half-an-inch would be a fair average. I always find in them a pair of beetles 

 during their construction, and would note here the analogy with Hylesinus, where 

 a two-branched burrow is also associated with the habit of both beetles being 

 engaged in its construction. The entrance of the gallery is placed out of sight 

 behind a loose scale of bark, or some slight projection. The ejected frass, which 

 all appears to have been eaten, lies loosely agglutinated together outside, but no 

 operculum covers the opening. I have several times met with an inverted gallery — 

 that is, one going downwards instead of upwards from its entrance. The eggs are 

 laid along both sides of the branches, twenty -five being a maximum for one side of 

 one branch, and the total rarely exceeding forty. The time occupied in their con- 



