COMMON ASH. 99 



the annexed cut, a represents the back, or upper part of 

 the scale magnified ; b the under ; c, the same filled with 

 eggs ; d the scale, natural size. 



The leaves are also the food of the larva of several 

 Lepidoptera, among which is that of the beautiful Catocala 

 fraxini, and upon the continent, in France, Spain, &c, 

 they are the food of the Cantharis vesicatoria, blister 

 beetle, which frequently abounds to such an extent as 

 to consume the entire foliage, and leave the Ash trees 

 naked during the greater part of the summer ; their pre- 

 sence, however, is attended with still more disagreeable 

 consequences, as they exhale a pungent and unwholesome 

 smell, and when dead upon the trees, and dried to a 

 powder, the particles float in the air and are apt to be 

 inhaled and to produce dangerous symptoms. In the 9th 

 vol. p. 119 of the " Magazine of Natural History," we 

 are informed by Mr. Giles Munby, that he saw an Ash 

 tree near Dijon which overhung the road, so covered with 

 Canth. vesic. that the ground beneath was actually black- 

 ened with their excrement. Passing beneath the tree, 

 he felt his face as if bitten by gnats, and a sickening smell 

 was perceived when at a considerable distance from it. 



In a half putrid or decayed state, the wood of the 

 Ash is a nidus for the two beetles, Dorcas parellipipedus, 

 and Sinodendron cylindricimi ; the first we have not yet 

 found in Northumberland, but the latter is abundant in the 

 decayed wood of the Ash upon the banks of the Coquit. 

 The bark, also, in a decaying state, or after the tree 

 has been cut down a few months, becomes the nidus of 

 the Hylesinus fraxini, a small beetle belonging to the family 

 Bostricidtf, all the members of which are lignivorous. The 

 subjoined cut represents the Hylesinus /rax. of the natural 

 size and magnified, also a piece of the decayed bark, show- 



