232 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



in the attempt, can divert them from it. Numerous are 

 the tribes of insects that seek their food in our timber, 

 whether laid up in store for our future use, employed in 

 our houses, buildings, gates or fences, or made up into 

 furniture. The several species of Mr. Marsham's ge- 

 nus Ips (which includes the coleopterous genera Apate, 

 Bostrichus, Hylessinus, Hylurgus, Tomicus, Platypus, 

 Scolytus, and Phloiotribus of modern systematists) all 

 prey upon timber, feeding between the bark and the 

 wood, and many of them excavating curious pinnated 

 labyrinths. Almost every kind of tree has a species of 

 this genus appropriated to it, and some have more than 

 one a . The Stag-beetle tribe, or Lucanidce, and several 

 of the weevils 5 , have a similar apetite, but penetrate 

 deeper into the wood. The most extensive family, howr- 

 ever, of timber-borers are the Capricorn beetles, include 

 ing the Fabrician genera of Prionus, Cerambyx^ Lamia c , 

 Stenocorus, Calopus, Rhagium, Gnoma, Saperda, Colli-? 

 dium, and Clytus. The larva of these, as soon as hatch- 

 ed, leaves its first station between the bark and wood, 

 and begins to make its way into the solid timber, (some of 

 them plunging even into the iron heart of the oak, and one 

 even perforating lead d ,) where it eats for itself tortuous 



a Kirby in Linn. Trans, v. 250. 



b Curculio lignarius, Marsh. Rhinosimus ruficollis, Latr. 



c Many species of the genus Lamia (L. lineata rufipes and affini- 

 ties, now properly made a new genus under the name of Doreadion) 

 are now discovered to live upon the roots of grass. 



11 The larva of a Cerambyx (which Dr. Leach has discovered to be 

 C.JBajulus, L.) sometimes does material injury to the wood-work of 

 the roofs of houses in London, piercing in every direction the fir- 

 rafters, and, when arrived at the perfect state, making its way out even 

 through sheets of lead one-sixth of an inch thick, when they happen 

 to have been nailed upon the rafter in which it has assumed its-finaJ, 



