368 



Insect Pests. 



chestiint, oak, aldei-, elm, and liawtlioni are attacked hy it, and it 

 has also been recorded from conifers. Amongst fruit trees it occurs 

 on plum, ajiple, pear and cherry. It is said liy Ormerod (1), who 

 quotes from Kollar (2), and others tliat it was one of our rarest insects 

 until 1S09. In 1S84 I found it doing much harm to plum trees at 

 Kin"Ston-<)n-Thame.?, and again in ISST and ISSS at Cambridge. It 

 has probably always occurred here and there in numbers. 



The best detailed account of it is given by Kollar (2), some of 

 which reappeais in Miss Ormerod's Handbook (1). 



The districts from which it has been recorded are Gloucestershire, 

 Weircestershire, Surrey and Cambridgeshire. 



LiFE-HlSTOKY AXD HaBITS. 



The beetle is pitchy-brown to black in colour, the wdng cases 

 heiii" reddisli-bnnvn, more so in the male than in the female; the 



antenna' are clavate and 

 reddish, the thorax granu- 

 lated, the elytra with alter- 

 nate rows of punctures and 

 fine, pubescent interspaces ; 

 legs reddish-brown. 



The female is 1 inch 

 long, the male is much 

 smaller than the female ; 

 the iemale has a large 

 hump-backed thorax, the 

 head hidden beneath it, and 

 the wing cases of the male 

 are much more cur\ed. 



The males are very rare 

 in the summer, but com- 

 n\oner in the winter. 

 The female commences her attack by boring into the main stem 

 foi' iirei'erence. Slie then makes ])assages, and in a small chandier at 

 the o])ening of each of these she places her eggs, white in cohmr and 

 longisli in shape. Kollar says : " .Vt the end of the entrance, the 

 female makes a somewhat wide a]iartment and lays her eggs in it in 

 a, heap, from seven to ten in nundier and sometimes fewer.'' 



jVs they hatch, some time in IMay and dune, the larva^ proceed 

 along the tunnels ime after another so as to partlv lill them, and 

 there they i'eed and ]iu]iate. 



\F. K,l,'t„lr. 

 242. — SHHT HIJLE BOREr, (X'/U'hnri'^ disiKIr). 



Showing three ijalleiii^s. 



