1899-1900.] Dr B. Stewart MacDougall on Genus Pissodes. 327 
Description of P. notatus. 
This red-brown beetle varies a good deal in size, from inch 
(the smallest which issued in the course of the experiments) up to 
§ inch (the largest which issued). 
The posterior angles of the wrinkled prothorax project sharply, 
and its hinder edges show two sinuous excavations. Both the 
upper and under surfaces of the beetle are powdered with white 
scales. On the upper surface of the prothorax stand four well- 
marked white points, and a fifth on the scutellum. The elytra 
have two transverse bands of scales, one in front and one 
behind their middle. The front one, which is non- continuous at 
the suture, is yellowish on either side externally, whitish inter- 
nally. The hinder band has also the same coloration ; it is 
broader externally than internally, and is continuous right across 
the wing covers. 
The larva is a fleshy, somewhat wrinkled, curled, legless grub, 
with a brown scaly head and strong gnawing jaws. 
Very common in Germany arid France, notatus is certainly 
spreading in Britain. Fowler (4) gives as localities Chat Moss, 
Sunderland (introduced in ships), and the Dee and Moray districts 
in Scotland. These, I am sure, must be added to. Within the last 
months I have obtained it from Aberdeen and from Glamorgan- 
shire in large numbers. Our native notatus are reinforced by 
arrivals from other countries in imported timber and in driftwood. 
I have notes from South Wales of logs washed ashore, which on 
examination contained notatus in various stages of development. 
Perhaps to such arrivals Glamorgan owes its notatus, and here the 
beetle has recently done grievous harm to pine plantations. 
Pissodes notatus is injurious both in the imago stage and as 
larva, but chiefly as the latter. The mature weevil in its feeding 
pierces the bark with its proboscis, making a number of tiny holes. 
Some of the young pines used in my experiments with the beetle 
have been quite riddled from top to bottom by the feeding 
weevils, just as if some one had with a needle pierced all over 
the stem and branches. The proboscis pierces through the 
cambium to the outermost layers of the youngest wood. The 
