1 6 Furniture Beetles. 



grown larvae and a pwpa. It seems probable, therefore, that in 

 the case of the death-watch beetle, pupation takes place in the 

 late summer or in autumn, the beetles after emergence remaining 

 in the pupal cells until the following spring. The beetles may- 

 be found in-doors in old houses in which oak or chestnut has 

 been used in the structural work or in the panelling of the rooms. 

 Sometimes the larvae burrow in old oak bookcases and other solid 

 pieces of furniture, and we have seen specimens of the beetles 

 that had been taken from old books. Out-of-doors they are to 

 be found in old stumps and dead branches of oak, chestnut, 

 willow, beech, hawthorn and possibly of some other trees as well. 

 Hitherto there has been no record of their attacking the wood of 

 coniferous trees, but quite recently a piece of Scot's pine-wood 

 from an old city church was found completely riddled with their 

 holes ; from which it appears that pine-wood when it is very old 

 and has lost all its resinous matter is no longer free from their 

 attack. 



The Powder-post Beetles. Lyctus brunneus, Steph. and 

 Lyctus linearis, Goeze {see Fig. 5). 



These beetles are little if anything larger than the common 

 furniture beetles, but are relatively longer and narrower in form, 

 and not so convex. There is, however, considerable variation in 

 size, some indiAdduals being only one-eighth of an inch, and others 

 more than one-fifth of an inch in length. They are dark brown in 

 colour, with the wing-cases reddish brown and somewhat glossy. 

 The two last joints of the antennae are longer and much stouter 

 than the others, and form a club-like ending. The tarsi, or feet„ 

 are 5-jointed and slender, but the first joint is very small and in- 

 conspicuous, and the last one, bearing the claws, longer than all 

 the other joints together. 



The two species look very much alike, but in Lyctus brunneus 

 the prothorax is wider in front than behind, and has a shallow 

 depression along the middle, whereas in L. linearis it is more 

 parallel-sided, and has rather a deep pit, elongate-elliptical in form, 

 along the middle. In the latter species also the decumbent hairs 

 on the wing-cases are disposed in longitudinal rows, while in the 

 first species they are spread in a more confused manner. 



Both species are widely distributed over the world, and in 

 this country Lyctus brunneus now appears to be by far the more 

 common of the two, though it was at one time considered to, be 

 a rarity. 



