GALLS CAUSED BY BEETLES 51 



the side opposite to that on which the egg was placed. 

 The pronounced rounded or fusiform swellings and the 

 poor development of leaves cause affected shoots to be 

 seen easily in the second year of the attack (Fig. 8, b). 

 As usual amongst the Coleoptera, the female (Fig. 9) is the 

 larger. It is about 17 mm. long, and more definitely 

 marked than the male (Fig. 10), which averages about 

 13 mm. in length. Saperda populnea is the sole British 

 coleopterous gall-causer on the Willows, and Byachonyx 

 pineti on the Conifers. The presence of the larvae of the 

 latter on the Scotch Pine causes the needles to be stunted 

 and thickened in the middle, the edges meeting to form a 

 cigar-shaped gall. 



Smicronyx jungermanniae Reich causes, on the Continent, 

 pea-like or fusiform galls, one or two celled, in the stems of 

 the Great Dodder {Cusuta Europoea Linn.) ; and S. caecus 

 Reich gives, rise to similar galls on the Lesser Dodder 

 (Cuscuta epithymum Murr.). These insects are recorded in 

 the lists of British Coleoptera, but I have no records of 

 their causing galls on the Dodder in this country. 



Economic Notes 



Many beetles are well-known pests of garden, farm, and 

 forest, though comparatively few are gall-causers. The 

 galls caused by Ceuthorrhynckus sulcicollis, the Cabbage and 

 Turnip weevil, have been described above. Miss Ormerod 

 observes that " these galls do little harm in themselves, so 

 far as Turnips are concerned — that is, unless they are very 

 numerous, or cause decay by wet lodging in the hollows in 

 the galls from which the maggots have escaped. But with 

 the Cabbage it is different. Here the gall growths on the 

 old stocks are not available for food, as they are with 

 Turnips ; they carry off the sap in the wrong direction, 

 besides inducing decay."* 



Hylufgus piniperda bores into young shoots of the Scotch 

 Pine ; the mouth of the burrow is surrounded by a white 



* " Manual of Injurious Insects," second edition, p. 35. 



