FOREST IMPORTANCE OF MYELOPHILUS MINOR HART. 
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which had been quite recently felled. I examined these later, during July onwards, 
but only M. piniperda was found breeding on them. 
If the woods be properly managed the increase of M. minor may be readily 
checked and their numbers reduced. The method of preparing trap-trees should 
be adopted, but these trap-trees should be standing trees, selected at intervals 
throughout the wood. Trees with badly shaped crowns, unhealthy, damaged, or 
those suppressed by taller surrounding trees, should be selected if possible as trap- 
trees. If such trees as these cannot be found in the wood, certain comparatively thin- 
barked trees may be selected and artificially be brought into an unhealthy condition by 
removing a ring of bark just above the surface of the ground. The use of trap-trees 
should be continuous from March to October to ensure success, so that suitable places 
at all times would be offered the beetles for their egg-laying. At regular intervals 
these traps, after examination, should be felled and the bark removed and destroyed, 
taking care that this is done before the larvae have become full grown, otherwise in 
the thin-barked portions of stems some of the pupae might be deep in the sapwood 
and not so easily reached. 
Natural Enemies of M. minor. 
The chief natural enemies of M. minor are predaceous and parasitic insects, and 
these do much to keep our species in control. 
The predaceous insects belong for the most part to two Coleopterous families, 
viz. the Cleridae and the Nitidulidae. 
I found Clerus formicarius L. both in the larval and adult stages feeding on 
larvae, pupae, and adults of both M. minor and M. piniperda. The four Nitulids # 
were Rhizophagus ferrugineus Payk., Rhizophagus depressus F., Pityophagus 
ferrugineus F., and Ips. quadripustulata L. In a number of cases the galleries of 
M. minor had been almost completely stripped of eggs by these beetles. 
A small Staphylinid beetle was an active predaceous form in the minor and 
piniperda galleries, feeding on the eggs. 
The larvae of Rhaphidia sp. (a Neuropterous genus) were also found destroying 
the eggs of minor and piniperda. 
A Hymenopterous parasite was not uncommon, feeding externally as larva on the 
larvae and pupae of minor and piniperda. 
Fungi. — Examination of infested trees in the open and close observation of 
M. minor and piniperda during the past years gave me the opinion that there is 
little mortality of minor due to fungus attack. On the other hand, whole broods 
of piniperda on the stumps of felled trees may be wiped out by fungus mycelia. 
* These Nitulid beetles feed on a number of bark-boring and bark-infesting species, Curculionid and Scolytid. 
See MacDoggall, “ On the Life-history and Habits of Rhizophagus depressus F.,” Notes of Royal Botanic Garden , 
No. iii, 1900 ; also the same Journal for the life-history and habits of Clerus formicarius, by MacDougall. 
