THE PINE TREE. 177 
grounds or to foreign pines placed in rich soil and shelter. 
The leading shoots are often destroyed, which renders the 
plant comparatively worthless. The first symptoms of attack 
appear from the pale foliage and drooping young shoot. 
These should be immediately picked off, collected into a bag, 
and burned; many such twigs will be found to contain the 
insect, which shifts from twig to twig during the summer 
months. Its effects are seldom observed in the native forests 
of Scotland, or in plantations in exposed moorland, and then 
only on the sheltered lateral twigs. I have never seen an 
exposed leading shoot injured in such places, therefore its 
operations have only the effect of a gentle pruning or fore- 
shortening of the tops of the lateral branches. There are 
other beetles more destructive to the Scotch pine in the forest 
than the one described. These consist of several species, 
abounding in ground where fir woods have recently been cut 
down. They find a congenial home in the old roots, and the 
mossy herbage and decayed leaves protect them in the severity 
of winter. It is when such places are replanted that these 
insects are most destructive by feeding on the bark of the 
plants of the fir tribe. They attack the plant first at the 
surface of the ground, particularly if it stands closely sur- 
rounded by a mossy herbage. When the bark is broken the 
plant yields a flow of rich resinous sap, on which they feed, 
and the result, in the course of a few weeks, is the death of 
the plant. Field-mice sometimés commit the like depreda- 
tions in similar situations, and on larger plants, but their 
attacks are not so frequent. 
No effectual cure for these evils is yet known, further than 
keeping the plants clear at the surface of the ground. The 
precautions best adapted to avert these casualties are detailed 
in the article on replanting forest ground.—(See p. 74.) 
Young plantations, commonly under thirty years of age, 
are subject to an attack from the larve of several species of 
moth peculiar to the pine. I have seen several acres of the 
Scotch pine, both in the Highlands and in the low country, 
stripped of every leaf, while all experiments in smoking and 
M 
