144 CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



A WOOD-EATER 



AND HER NEST. 



Among the many substances devoured by animals 

 are some that seem entirely unfit to eat—mud and 

 poisonous plants and toadstools. The scoletus lives 

 upon bark and timber, and craves no other food. 

 She belongs to a tribe that is made up of a great 

 many species, and each species selects the particular 

 kind of wood it wishes to live upon, and will not 

 readily eat any other. Some prefer elm, some oak, 

 others ash; there are, in fact, few sorts of timber 

 that do not appeal to the taste of some one of the 

 scoletus tribe. 



The scoletus is a beetle, and she is called scoletus 

 because she looks as if she was sawed or cut off short 

 and square at both ends. The name is from the 

 Greek, and means " cut off short. 



Madame Cut-off-Short ha\-ing chosen the tree best 

 suited for her purpose — she prefers a sickly or dying 

 one — proceeds to eat her way into the bark, boring a 

 round hole that looks as if made by a shot. When 

 she reaches solid timber she burrows a long passage, 

 sometimes deeply into the tree, at other times between 

 the bark and the \rood. The end of this passage 

 marks the end of her life, for, turning, she retraces 

 her steps, laying eggs as she goes at regular distances 

 apart along the gallery, and having reached the en- 



