152 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the wliole wood when the majority of its trees have suffered. 

 This book is not as well known as it should be — a circumstance 

 due, perhaps, to its being too entomological for most botanists, 

 too botanical for most entomologists. The text and plates are 

 arranged according to the species of trees, beginning with the 

 most important, and it is interesting to note that the whole of 

 the first volume (274 pp.) is occupied by the Pine and Spruce-Fir; 

 the first eighty pages of the second volume are taken up by the 

 Silver Fir and Larch, while the twelve genera of deciduous trees 

 occupy 264 pages, Forty-three plates illustrate these four 

 Conifers, and ten the deciduous trees, a fact sufficient to show 

 the immense importance of the subject of this paper. 



Besides Katzeburg and his pupils and successors, Perris in 

 France, Lindeman in Eussia, and Packard in the United States 

 have especially contributed to our knowledge of Conifer-feeding 

 insects. 



In Great Britain less has been done to advance our knowledge 

 of them, perhaps because owing to geographical position and 

 chmate its insect population is comparatively small, and serious 

 damage is fortunately rare. The three worst enemies to Conifers 

 in Europe are the moths GastrojMcha Pini and Lijjaris monacha, 

 and the beetle Tomicus tyiwgrajohus. Now G. Pini does not occur 

 in Great Britain ; L. monacha, though not rare in the Oak-woods 

 of the South of England, is unknown as a Conifer-feeder, and is 

 never destructive ; and Tomicus typograplius is very scarce and 

 most likely to be found as a " casual " in the bark of imported 

 scaffold-poles, &c. There are, of course, many papers scattered 

 through British journals of entomology and sylviculture on those 

 six or seven species of insects which have done serious injury to 

 Conifers, but there is a deficiency of information with regard 

 to the less important kinds. 



In the large number of insects feeding on these trees only 

 a few are of habitual importance, but exceptional abundance 

 of a normally unimportant species will bring about unexpected 

 damage. This sometimes occurs in Great Britain, and I have 

 heard complaints of damage which was not assignable to any 

 of the regular destroyers, but v/hich could not be identified in 

 the absence of specimens. It is about these casually destruc- 

 tive species that we require to know more. 



Now the standpoint of the systematic entomologist, or of the 



