HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



435 



I promised to introduce you to insects whose labours pro- 

 duced edifices more astonishing than those of the mightiest 

 Egyptian monarchs, the pyramids, my promise, whatever you 

 then thought of it, was the reverse of hyperbolical. 



I am, &c. 



Addition to the note on Scolytus destructor, vol. i. p. 181. 



Since writing the note above referred to upon Scolytm destructor, I have 

 seen, in passing through Paris to Italy, so striking an instance of the way in 

 which the little beetle to which it refers has revenged the neglect and contempt 

 thrown upon its class by destroying in a great degree the effect of one of the 

 most vaunted and costly productions of modern architecture, that the fact may 

 be worth recording as an instructive warning for the future. The avenue of 

 ehtis connecting the Place de la Concorde and Champs Elysees with the Barriere 

 de I'Etoile leading to Neuilly, St, Germains, &c. has always been described as 

 the most magnificent approach to Paris, and was on that account selected 

 by Napoleon for the entree of his new empress Marie- Louise, and as the 

 site, at its most elevated point, of the " Arc de Triomphe," commemorating 

 his victories and companions in arms, of which he laid the foundations, but 

 which has only recently been completed at a vast expense. It is needless to 

 point out how essentially the effect of this splendid monument of art must de- 

 pend upon the size, health, and beauty of the lines of trees connecting it with 

 those which occupy the Champs Elysees, and garden of the Tuilleries ; yet at 

 this time (September 10. 1842) there are lying from twenty to thirty of their 

 finest elms very lately cut down, in consequence of having died from the attacks of 

 Scolyti; and as many others have been previously removed and replaced by young 

 trees, and the full-grown ones offer, from their dead tops, the numerous holes in 

 their bark, and the oozing sap, ample proof that their pigmy but effective as- 

 sailants are silently at work on the rest, it is evident that the whole avenue is 

 eventually doomed to destruction, and that a century must elapse before it can 

 resume that grandeur which it might have retained for ages had the economy of 

 these insects been understood, and the proper measures for extirpating them 

 taken at the outset. It has been well observed, that in many cases a palace 

 had better be burnt than the fine old trees that surround and ornament it de- 

 stroyed, as the former may be rebuilt in a few years, while no cost can replace 

 the latter ; and a reflection somewhat similar must have passed through the 

 mind of Napoleon, had he lived to witness the present broken, patched, and mi- 

 serable aspect of one of the most striking and indispensable features of his tri- 

 umphal arch, and to see in prospect, that even when the last victims to the 

 destructive attacks of the despised Scolyti — foes which, from his ignorance of 

 entomology,, had conquered even him — should have been cut down, and the 

 unsightly gaps attempted to be filled up by planting young trees in their place, 

 neither he nor his successor could ever witness in this the proudest monument 

 of his reign the mingled splendour and grace which it would have exhibited, if 

 approached, as he meant it to have been, through a full-grown, entire, and ma- 

 jestic avenue. 



END OF THE FIKST VOLUME. 



