24 Z. Peringiiey^ Insects Injurious to [Jan. 28, 



bark, — the best preventive remedy against the attacks of the xylopha- 

 gous insects generally. 



The largest examples of that family are the Prionidae, 14 of them 

 known in S. Africa. The damage done by the Tithoes confinis, must be 

 very great. In fact, I attribute to it, or to its congener, the T. capensis, 

 the galleries, 1 inch deep and 1 inch broad, excavated in the sap and 

 heart- wood of a small piece of Cape Ebony ( Euolea Pseudehetius), a 

 wood of extremely hard texture. I thought to be able to exhibit this 

 little log, but I found that it has gone to Edinburgh. 



The small Delochilus prionides is not uncommon near Cape Town, 

 and I found the larva, a cylindrical legless one, in the Poplar tree, 

 the Keurboom, Vergilia-mpensis, and the oak. The Erioderus hirtus, 

 sometimes met with here, is common in Knysna. I captured a female 

 of that species in a healthy Protaea grandiflora, in the Hex Biver 

 mountains. The Cacosceles ^dipus, an insect rare in collections, I 

 found in the same place, in a decajdng oak-tree, tunnelled perpen- 

 dicularly by what, I have no doubt, was the larva lately emerged. 

 In Natal, the extreme East, and also on the Orange River are found 

 the large Macrotoma. The whole family numbers in S. Africa, 303 

 species, mostly aU of large size, and of the tribe Ceranibycidae, three 

 of them only, the size of the Ceramhjx heros too well known in 

 Europe on account of its destructive powers. This closes the list of 

 Coleopterous insects known or suspected to be injurious to forest trees 

 in South Africa. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



Of the Lepidoptera, Butterflies and Moths I wiU say little, because 

 I know but little about that Order. 



The genus Cossusy to which belong the English Goat Moth, Consus 

 ligniperda, injurious in Europe to nearly all kinds of timber and 

 fruit-trees, possesses here two representatives only : that is to say as 

 far as is known to Mr. Trimen. A tolerably large caterpillar, very 

 beautifully marked, has been sent to us from the neighbourhood of 

 Carnarvon, by Mr. Garwood Alston, to whom I am indebted, as also 

 to his son, for several discoveries in the primary stages of several 

 beetles. It feeds in the wood of a ligneous Mesembryanthemum 

 fM. junceum^J, the ash-bush of the Colonists. The other Cossus is 

 found in a Buddleia 5^. ? ; it is the C. tristis fPruryJ. 



The grand Silver Moth {Leto Venus) found only in Knysna, I 

 believe, haunts the Keurboom ( Virgilia capensis) only, it is said. The 

 Bombycid moths of the family Saturnidae have here about 20 species, 

 mostly all of large size. Some of them are omnivorous, and residents 

 on the Camp Ground are, doubtless, too well acquainted with the large 

 deep red, green and yellow- spotted one, which devours so speedily the 

 leaves of the pine-tree. It is the larva of the Antherea Cytherea. 

 But the ravages of these Bombycidae are limited to foliage only. 



We have then, on the whole, a sufficiency of insects injurious to 

 trees, which will, no doubt, be anything but satisfactory to a Forester. 



And now, will you say, that we know the possible extent of the 

 damage that could be done by those insects, what are the preventives ? 



It is with sorrow, that I must answer, that the use of preventives 

 against damages caused by insect agency have , not always been 

 followed by satisfactory results. It is extremely difficult to cope with 



* Determined by Mr. P. MucOwan. 



