THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



159 



TomicilS sexdentatus is the largest of the British species of Scoty- 

 tidce. It is extremely rare in Britain, if it remains so it will be well, as it 

 is a very destructive insect to pines. It completely undermines the bark with 

 its numerous galleries. I met with this species some years since in pine 

 props at a Dukinfield coal-pit. 



Tomicus typographus is also very destructive to pines. It is very 

 rare in Britain. In Germany the great pine forests are in certain seasons 

 very much damaged by the larvae of this insect which feed beneath the bark. 

 The evil is occasionally so great that prayers are offered up in the churches 

 against its extension. In 1873, the number of trees destroyed in the 

 Hartz forest alone, amounted to a million and a half. 



Tomicus acumitiatUS feeds under the bark of the pine, it is very rare, 

 I have only met with one of this species near Manchester. 



Tomicus laricis feeds in larch trees, filling the bark with its numerous 

 perforations, beneath which the larvae have fed, it is a common and destruc- 

 tive insect, it also feeds beneath the bark of the pine. 



Tomicus bidentatus is very destructive to the minor branches of pines, 

 it is very probably the cause of the numerous dead branches. 



Platypus cylindrus is found chiefly in the New Forest, its larvae feed 

 in the solid wood of the oak. It is perhaps not as destructive as those 

 species that feed just beneath the bark, as by that means they cut off 

 the supply of sap. 



(To be continued.) 



REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



July 6, 1887.— Dr. D. Sharp, F.Z.S., President in the chair. 



The Eev. W. T. H. Newman, M.A., 11, Park Terrace, The Crescent, 

 Oxford, was elected a Fellow of the Society. 



Mr. M'Lachlan remarked that at the meeting of the Society in October, 

 1886, he exhibited a quantity of the so-called " jumping seeds" from Mexico, 

 containing larvae of Carpocapsa saltitans, Westw. The seeds have long ceased 

 to "jump/' which proved that the larvse were either dead, had become quies- 

 cent, or had pupated ; about a fortnight ago he opened one of the seeds, and 

 found therein a living pupa. On the 4th inst, a moth (exhibited) was pro- 

 duced. 



