Entomological Society. 



5999 



" I will not trespass more now into detail, but simply state that each family will 

 destroy nearly four square inches of bark. Granting, therefore, even the possibility of 

 the Scolyti being attracted by the sickening state of a tree, here we find one parent 

 insect has the power of destroying a large portion of bark, and consequently must 

 rapidly hasten the final decay. No doubt where the insect abounds it will perforate 

 the bark of fresh-hewed timber; but I have never found one specimen in an elm 

 whose juices were dried up. Therefore, irrespective of the cause of disease, it must 

 be unanimously granted that an insect which can destroy four square inches of bark 

 by detaching it from the alburnum must prove highly destructive, and, whilst permit- 

 ted to remain, frustrate any attempt to restore health. If, in the absence of any 

 true and logical cause, we have found elm trees sickening and dying, and their bark 

 bearing the unequivocal signs of the Scolyti, and simply by a process of partial bark- 

 ing and removing the Scolyti larvae, we arrest the decay of those not too far advanced, 

 and in a comparatively short period restore them to health and beauty, we have every 

 rational right to infer that the Scolyti, and the Scolyti alone, were the aggressors in 

 the first instance, and destroyers in the second ; and still more, that when we find the 

 whole of the diseased trees in the Royal Botanic Gardens perfectly recovered in 

 1849, and now (1858) bearing all the impress of vigour, so that in many the fearful 

 scars once made are now hidden from sight, and buried by the overlapping of suc- 

 ceeding yearly deposits, I think this Society will ask no further proofs at my hands of 

 the sound and practical results that have followed the simple and easy process of par- 

 tial barking; that the lapse of so. many years establishes beyond a doubt its great 

 utility ; and that, in the absence of any other advanced system for arresting the spread 

 of the Scolyti in particular, this plan ought to be strongly advocated ere another year 

 sends forth its thousands to still more diminish the number of these noble and beauti- 

 ful ornaments to our parks and pleasure-grounds. 



"The plan I adopt for destroying the insect is very simple: as the frass always 

 indicates the aperture to the tube, and as this always ascends directly upwards, so by 

 paring off the old exuvial bark we lay bare the tube and completely destroy the young 

 brood. I strongly advocate clearing off all the old bark of elms where the Scolyti 

 abound : in the first place, the trees actually seem to improve by the process ; in the 

 next place, the Scolyti cannot find the shelter of the overhanging bark, and therefore 

 are more liable to become the prey of birds; and finally, you detect at once the 

 presence of any fresh attack. I believe the process adopted in France, of taking the 

 whole bark off down to the alburnum, is fraught with great risk ; it did not succeed in 

 a tree that I saw, nor can I conceive a more unnatural operation. I merely cut the 

 insect out, the tree is scarcely injured by the process, and a few years obliterates all 

 trace of the operation. The instrument I prefer is a simple draw-shave, known to 

 coopers and carpenters ; it is very easily used, and answers the purpose admirably : in 

 using it all we have to do is to cut down to the parent tube, and then lay bare the 

 lateral tubes to their end, taking care that no larvae remain ; the healthy alburnum is 

 therefore not inj ured, * causa sublata aeger verelescit.' " 



Mr. S. S. Saunders read a paper intituled " Observations on the Habits of the 

 Dipterous Genus Conops," and exhibited the larva, pupa and imago of a species of 

 that genus, which he had reared from Pompilus audax. 



Mr. Westwood read the description of a new genus of Carabideous insects, be- 

 longing to the Scaritides, having the outward appearance of the Heteromerous genus 



