34 A MANUAL OP THE CONIFER*. 



Heavy as the indictment for mischief against the larger animals 

 appears to be, it is comparatively light to that which must be 

 preferred for the ravages committed by insects, which prove 

 infinitely the more destructive as they are the more numerous 

 and their mode of attack the more insidious. Scarcely any 

 Coniferous plants can be said to be free from their depredations, 

 although it is among the timber-producing trees of the Fir and 

 Pine tribe that the evil caused by these minute marauders is the 

 most serious. The Scotch, Weymouth, and other Pines are fre- 

 quently infested by a species of beetle known as the Pine Beetle,* 

 which deposits its eggs in the bark and buds of young trees ; 

 the larvas eat out the interior of the buds and young shoots 

 during the period of active growth, and thus check and even 

 permanently injure the trees they attack. The Typographer Beetle, f 

 so called from the passages made in the wood by its larvae in 

 eating their way out having a fancied resemblance to alphabetical 

 letters, attacks the Silver Fir, but will also commit ravages on 

 other kinds where the Silver Fir is scarce. J Pines are also 

 attacked by a large kind of weevil, § which pierces the bark with 

 its trunk, " thus rendering the tree unhealthy prior to the female 

 depositing her eggs." The Larch blight is caused by a kind of 

 beetle, || which deposits its eggs in the crevices of the bark, 

 whence they are propagated with marvellous rapidity in the Spring 

 months. An insect called Sirex is particularly destructive to Fir 

 timber ; the wood is pierced and bored in all directions by this 

 pest, and it is not till after the trees have been felled that its 

 ravages are manifest. 



The Irish Juniper is often disfigured by the larvae of a moth, 

 called the Juniper Moth; and even the Yew, poisonous as it 

 is to the larger animals, is the home of an insect to which 

 entomologists give the name of Cecidonyea Taxi. These are but 

 a few of the best known and most destructive kinds observed in 

 Britain. There is, however, a counterpoise found even among 

 insects. "It is well known that while there are multitudes of 



* Hylurgus piniperda. See Gardeners' Chronicle for 1846, p. 720, where an account 

 of this insect is given ; also for 1869, p. 967. 



t Bostrichus typography*. Mr. Robert Hutchison, in Proceedings of the Scotch Arbori- 

 cultural Society, 1874. 



+ Idem. § Pisodes notatus. || Bostrichus laricio. 



