834 



OPEN FLOWER-GARDEN. 



it leaves the shoot before it arrives quite at the 

 extremity. It is supposed by some that it is 

 the males only who perform these borings, 

 while others think that the females are also 

 so employed, and that they deposit their eggs 

 in the perforations. Reasoning from analogy, 

 one would be apt to favour the latter opinion, 

 were it not that no eggs have been detected in 

 them ; these are in general found in crevices of 

 the bark, or below the bark of dead or decaying 

 fir trees. When young trees are infested, which 

 will soon be seen by the points of the branches 

 drooping down, turning yellow, and often fall- 

 ing off altogether, such branches should be cut 

 off as soon as the evil is detected. If the insects 

 are found under the bark, the trees had better 

 be cut down and burnt. It is so far fortunate 

 that the abode and propagation of this beetle 

 are in the pith of the young side shoots more 

 generally than in the leading ones. The larvse 

 feed on the trunks of dead or dying trees, and 

 the beetle only places her brood on healthy 

 trees when compelled by necessity. 



The spruce pine weevil, CurcuHo {Hylobius) 

 abielis Schonh., Curculiopini Lin., fig. 232, p. 535. 

 — Although so called, this beetle does not confine 

 its ravages to the spruce alone, but attacks the 

 Scotch fir and larch also. It has been found in 

 some cases exceedingly injurious to rhododen- 

 drons, azaleas, and various other trees. This 

 beetle generally attacks newly transplanted 

 trees, or such as are sickly. It operates by 

 stripping off the bark and scooping out the buds 

 of the leading shoots. Kollar conjectured — and 

 subsequent investigation seems to confirm the 

 idea — that the female deposits her eggs deep in 

 the roots of the trees. The passages of the larvse 

 appear to confirm this opinion, as they gene- 

 rally run upwards. " The favourite resort of 

 the beetles are those spots where the pines 

 were felled, and where the stocks and 

 branches are allowed to remain, although they 

 are found at times, when they have increased 

 very much, in other places, on account of their 

 power of flight. They pass the winter in the 

 felled trees, and are found in spring on the 

 lower branches of the young ones that are 

 covered with grass and moss. The beetles col- 

 lect in such places in July and August, at the 

 time of laying their eggs, in great number. Of 

 their continuance in the larva state nothing is 

 distinctly known ; they seem, however, to pass 

 the winter unchanged." It appears from obser- 

 vations made at Airdrie and elsewhere, that they 

 attack the young trees in greatest numbers 

 when they have been planted on ground formerly 

 carrying the same kind of crop, and from which 

 the old roots have not been removed. An in- 

 stance is given in " The Gardeners' Chronicle " 

 of a plantation in Ross-shire, of 10 acres extent, 

 " that was planted with two-years' transplanted 

 larch, spruce, and common fir, upon ground 

 which had been newly cleared of fir timber that 

 had been growing there for upwards of seventy 

 years. The larch plants have been all destroyed 

 by this weevil, which commenced its operations 

 at the root, and stripped every plant of the 

 bark up to the summit ; but some larches in 

 the same field, and about 9 years old and 12 



feet in height, remain untouched, as well as 

 about 100 acres of larch in the neighbourhood, 

 which were planted about 14 years back, and 

 immediately after an old fir wood had been cut 

 down." We make this quotation to show that 

 the rule is not in all cases the same, but in too 

 many cases it is so to a fearful extent. There can, 

 however, be but one opinion on the impropriety 

 of replanting ground with coniferous trees from 

 which a crop of the same has been recently re- 

 moved, as well as of the impolicy of cutting 

 over the trees and leaving the stumps in the 

 ground, instead of grubbing them up altogether. 

 This beetle measures nearly 6 lines in length, 

 exclusive of its long rostrum, which inclines 

 downwards. The thorax is smaller than the ab- 

 domen, which is nearly cylindrical ; the other 

 parts of the body are dark brown. The rostrum 

 points upwards, and is very thick ; the antennae 

 extend nearly to its tip when at rest. The 

 wing-cases have several long and short trans- 

 verse bands, marked with small yellow hairs. 

 It is more destructive in its perfect state than 

 as a larva, because its transformation never 

 takes place in young living wood. The larva is 

 thick and fleshy, tapering very much towards 

 both ends ; besides the head, the body consists 

 of twelve segments of a milk-white colour ; the 

 head is reddish brown, with very dark jaws and 

 palpi. Instead of three pairs of thoracic feet, 

 there are three pairs of small ones, with from 

 four to six long brown fleshy tubercles, furnished 

 with a few short hairs. The perfect insects do 

 not appear every year at the same time ; they 

 are often found in immense numbers in June 

 and July, sometimes in May, and also in August. 

 It has been hinted that two broods may be pro- 

 duced annually, but this is greatly doubted. 



The black arch-moth, Psilura monacha (Bom- 

 bi), Liparis monacha. — This is another of the 

 pine-destroying insects, and although, so far as 

 we are at present aware, it has not visited us as 

 it has for ages the forests on the Continent, of 

 which Kollar and others have drawn up, no 

 doubt, a true but very dolorous account, it 

 does exist amongst us, and may be on the in- 

 crease ; its habits should therefore be known 

 that its progress may be arrested. It not only 

 attacks the pines, but the oak, elm, aspen, lime, 

 and willow, and is by no means unknown in our 

 apple and pear orchards. About the end of 

 July and beginning of August the male may be 

 found during the day upon the trunks of the 

 trees it intends to attack. They are smaller 

 than the females, measuring about an inch and 

 a half across the expanded wings, while the 

 females measure nearly an inch more. The 

 colour of the moth is a creamy white, marked 

 with black spots and streaks. The under wings 

 are dusky. The antennas are black, tinged above 

 with pink. The caterpillars appear in June and 

 July, are of an ashy-brown colour, with tufts of 

 reddish hair on the back, and a black heait- 

 shaped spot on the second segment of the body. 

 They are, when fully grown, from one and a 

 half to one and three quarters of an inch in 

 length. The female lays her eggs in the cracks 

 of the bark of old pines, to the number of 

 twenty or thirty, in a bunch resembling a cluster 



