1868.] 



128 



oontainod hundreds of the perfect insect ready to emerge on the approach of 

 spring, and but for the fall of the tree would have made their burrows in it again ; 

 but now they have all lefl it, so that last week I had difficulty in finding a 

 specimen. H. fraxmi, of which odd specimens only were to be found during the 

 winter, now on the contrary abounds in it. The parent galleries of H. crenatus are 

 proportionally much shorter than those of H. fraxini, and more frequently consist 

 of only one branch, the male and female both entering the burrow as with 

 H. fraxini, but the male usually leaving before the gallery is quite completed. The 

 egg are fewer than with fraxini, and laid in a deeper cavity, and so thickly covered 

 with a layer of frass as to require looking for, 



H. crenatus appear to be generally distributed in this district, but is hardly 

 likely to prove very destructive ; if found to be so, the tree on which it has formed 

 a settlement cannot be rescued without a process of barking, — as serious as the 

 ravages of the beetle. They are not likely to attack neighbouring trees till driven 

 out of their strongholds on the fall of an affected tree, therefore they should be 

 destroyed, or they will establish themselves in others. At the same time I would 

 enter a protest against waging war with any species that is to be regarded as 

 scarce or local. 



H. vittatus attacks fallen elm as H. fraxini does the ash ; its buiTOWs are 

 shorter, and the two branches are very uniformly of equal length, rarely exceeding 

 y of an inch long ; the number of eggs laid is seldom as many as 20, and, being 

 usually placed more widely apart than those of H. fraxini, the burrows of the larvae 

 are nearly parallel, giving little of the fan form seen in the burrows of that species. 

 It appears much less common than H. fraxini, though I find their burrows abun- 

 dantly in a piece of elm fallen about the end of April. The operculum of frass 

 which closes the mouth of the burrow is more complete than in H. fraxini. They 

 complete their changes in one year. I have been unable to find any evidence 

 of their attacking living trees, so that from an (Economic point of view they must 

 be regarded as very unimportant. 



The decay and destruction of fallen timber is much facilitated by these Hylesini 

 and their allies. They partially or wholly destroy the bark; their frass-fiUed 

 burrows absorb and retain much moisture, which is almost essential to decay, and 

 usually the bark is so much loosened that, after a longer or shorter time, it falls off. 

 This rarely takes place before the wood is much injured by fungi, for which the 

 damped-destroyed bark has been the nidus, and by the various sub-cortical species 

 of insects for which the beetle burrows, have opened a way. The wood is then 

 easily attacked by the numerous wood-feeders, various Longicornes, and Anohia^ 

 Sinodendron, &c., which soon complete its destruction. But the necessity for a 

 natural method of clearing the ground of dead and dying timber has so long ceased 

 in this country, that we have difficulty in regarding these insects as other than 

 noxious pests. — T. Algernon Chapman, M.D., Abergavenny, May, 1868. 



Live Clytus arietis in Museums. — Lately, when looking over some old numbers 

 of our venerable predecessor, " The Entomological Magazine," I was irresistibly 

 reminded of the trite maxim that " Histoiy repeats itself," by seeing a note of Mr. 

 Denny's (at p. 114 of Vol. ii, 1833) on the occurrence of three specimens of ClytxLS 



