352 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
hind edges show scarcely any sinuosity. In front of the elytra 
are two yellow spots on each side. 
Behind the middle of the elytra there is a small continuous 
transverse band composed of yellow scales compacted together. 
There are rows of long deep pits down the wing covers. 
Life history . — The larger brown weevil, which is found in the 
centre and the north-east of Scotland (and, according to Fowler, also 
in Northumberland), lays eggs on old stems of the genus Pinus, 
Scots pine and the Weymouth pine figuring most largely in notices- 
of attack. The thinner parts of the tree are not neglected by the 
females ; indeed, Altum, generalising from his experience with pini, 
proclaims that in the first instance it is the upper, thinner parts 
which are attacked, and later in the progress of the attack the 
lower thick parts. In my experiments I had egg-laying on per- 
fectly thin twigs. In one case, where I had given a pine log for 
breeding material, and placed alongside of it a small three-year-old 
pine, eggs were laid in the latter, and after larval feeding the 
pupal beds were formed in it ; I also got such beds on thin side 
roots an inch or more below the soil. 
Spruce also is sometimes used for egg-laying. 
A varying number of eggs are laid in a hole bored by the 
female in the bark. The larvse start from their common hatching 
place and bore out in all directions, the tunnels, however, running 
chiefly in the long axis of the stem. In one case Altum counted 
no fewer than thirty of these tunnels starting from one point. 
The tunnels are long (I have found specimens up to a foot long) 
and winding, and they often cut one another. The pupa beds, with 
their characteristic covering of wood chips, are made in the outer- 
most layers of the wood. 
It is a practical point worth emphasising that the beds may be 
quite into the wood. 
While examining a pine in the pole stage from Aberdeen- 
shire, I came on the work of pini. Having peeled away the 
bark, it was easy to trace the progress of the larva by the 
frass. This I removed with my knife, including the thicker 
mass at the end, where one might have expected to find either 
larva or pupa, but neither was seen. Instead was a round 
hole neatly plugged with sawdust. The grub had bored into the 
