m 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



appeared to do well till they grew to about twelve feet high, when they were 

 found to be infested with insects. One of the trees was sent to the late Mr. 

 Joseph Sidebotham, who succeeded in rearing a number of Sir esc gigas from 

 it ; the interior of the tree was entirely eaten away by insects. In Dunham 

 Park, larch and pine trees are injured very much by it. This insect occurs 

 freely on Chat Moss, also in coal mines freely, having been carried down in 

 the props, which are used to support the roof, and is very likely the cause of 

 the miners occasionally losing their lives in consequence of the props giving 

 way. There is no doubt the above insect is often imported, for it frequently 

 occurs in Manchester and all other towns where foreign timber is used. I 

 have seen it flying on the New Brighton ferry. Miss Ormerod saw this 

 species as it came out of a larch tree, in West Gloucestershire, and captured 

 about twenty in a few hours. At a military store in France, where clothing 

 was placed on shelves made of pine, in which two larva of this insect were 

 feeding; on arriving at maturity they found their progress arrested by 

 trousers, and they bored their way through them before they were detected. 

 At Grenoble, a box containing cartridges was found to be infested with this 

 insect, which had pierced the bullets after emerging from the timber in which 

 the larva had fed ; they perished in the attempt to escape. Some years since 

 about 200 fir trees were totally destroyed by it on a large estate in Norfolk. 



Sirex juvencus occurs on Chat Moss freely and Dunham Park, also in 

 Manchester and other towns. The larvse feed in the interior of pine, &c, and 

 its habits are similar to the preceding species. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



Sesia myopiformis larvae feeds in the stems and branches of apple 

 trees. 



S, Cllliciformis larva is very destructive to young birch, especially 

 where crate wood is grown. It feeds beneath the bark, near to where the 

 young shoots grow on the stumps of birch trees which have been recently 

 felled. It also bores into the young shoots near the base, and betrays itself 

 by the frass which extrudes from the burrows, consequently a great number of 

 young shoots die or become unhealthy, the result is a smaller crop of crate 

 wood. It may be detected by the perforations in the stump and bark 

 which the woodpecker has made. 



S- formiciformis larva feeds in shoots of willows, in osier beds, also in 

 the shoots of the long-leaved triandrous willow. 



S- cynipiformis larva feeds in the bark of oak in the South and West 

 of England. 



