52 
The Queensland N^turali^t. 
VpL. 2 
indeed only a shell, and soon fell to pur joint attack wit|i 
tomahawks. On splitting up, quite a nest of living specimens 
of this fine and rare insect was disclosed, and these were 
shared between us with great glee and jubilation. Unfortu- 
nately, we did not think to look further for cocoons or larvae, 
and hence a good opportunity to gain knowledge of some 
of its life history was lost. ^ 
Trichanlax trichopyga . — Whilst on a visit to Gympie 
in its early days, when rich scrubs abounded in all directions, 
and only the timber-getters’ tracks, and those rarely, were 
the roads into them, we (boys then, and after Queensland 
nuts far up on Eel Creek) were startled by one of these large 
beetles buzzing over our heads. Nabirally, we stood and 
watched it, seeing it fly to and enter the hollow of a dark 
yellow wood, we detailed one to watch that it did not fly 
out, and set to work at felling. This accomplished, the next 
thing was to get the beetle, and we must have worked for 
over an hour, splitting up the tree, before we came across it. 
The creature had gone in and forced its way to the very 
bottom of the narrow hole, almost to where the cut was made 
to fell it ; and had we commenced there a very few minutes 
would have sufficed. Tt turned out to be a fine large female 
specimen which, with another obtained under almost similar 
conditions, found its way to France, and was there described 
and named by Thomsen. The beetle has since been obtained 
in* the Kuranda district of Queensland. As both specimens 
were females, we must infer that the object of the insect 
was to lay its eggs, and probably after doing this, it may 
emerge in a weak and sickly state, and so account for the 
condition in which T. marginipennis has been taken as 
recorded in our earlier remarks thereon. 
Another large beetle in the garden affecting Poinciana 
regia is Xylotrupes australicus, a member of the Dynastid^e. 
The large grubs of this creature were abundant under the 
lieaps of leaves raked up for leaf mould, and do not appear 
to add to the fertilising qualities of the mould, but fill it 
with large hard flattish oval lumps of their dejecta. A few 
years ago, some of these grubs were put in a large tin, filled 
up with partly decayed leaves, and with lid closed down, 
left exposed to sun, wind and rain for many months, and 
though occasionally looked to as to what was going on, it 
was not until one day near the end of January, on opening, 
several unusually large and lively beetles made their 
appearance. This insect breeds in numbers in megass heaps, 
spent tan, etc., and is not injurious to roots of plants, as are 
the larv^ of the Melolonthidae and Rutelidas, and other 
members of the Dynastidfe, such as Pentodon australis. 
The puparium is formed of agglutinated earth lined inside 
with fibrous vegetable matter. 
