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Destruction of Forests. We are chiefly interested in Insects by reason of the 
mischief they work on our forests, but we can only cope with their visitations if we know 
about the insects themselves, and this is my apology in submitting this preliminary 
contribution to Forest Entomology. We want our foresters and the general public 
to take a greater interest in the subject, and improved knowledge will inevitably lead 
to better conservation of the forests. 
Insects are difficult to deal with owing to the extensive and irregular areas of 
many of our forests. Preventive rules are noted at Schlich's " Manual of Forestry," 
iv, 144. 
. A few years ago it was not generally known that White Ants will attack living 
trees, but in New South Wales, at least, this is well ascertained now. Sometimes the 
first obvious evidence that anything is wrong with a particular tree is when, weakened 
by the insidious enemy, it has been blown down by a gust. A bushman's observation 
is that White Ants in a tree are to be found on the opposite to the " weather" side. 
Mr. E. H. F. Swain* has briefly written on the ravages of White Ants in a few of our 
northern timbers. 
There are some notes on the ravages of insects in forests by Rev. Peter 
Macpherson,f and the late Dr. A. W. Howitt-t 
For information on Chafers (allied to our King Beetles) stripping trees in Britain, 
see White's " Selborne." 
An extract from Dr. Howitt's observations on the destruction of trees by 
Lepidoptera in Victoria is worth repeating. 
I have spoken just now of the destruction of Eucalypts by other means than the hand of man, 
for clearing his holdings, and the following are the facts I have gathered concerning the subject : 
About the year 1863-4 I observed that a belt of Red Gums (E. roslrata) which extended across the 
plains between Sale, Maffra and Stratford were beginning to die. Gradually all the trees of this forest, as 
well as in other localities, perished. At that time my attention was not drawn to the investigation of the 
cause. Later, however, probably about 1878, I observed the Red Gum forests of the Mitchell River Valley 
to be dying, just as those at Nuntin and elsewhere had died years before. I then investigated the subject, 
and found the trees were infested with myriads of the larvae of some one of the nocturnal Lepidoptera. 
These devoured the upper and under epidermis of the leaves, thus asphyxiating the tree. Some 75 per 
cent, of that forest died that year, and subsequently almost all the surviving trees died also. Since then 
I have observed the same larvae at work, some of which, when kept until they had passed through their 
several metamorphoses to the perfected insect, were pronounced by Professor McCoy to be examples of 
Urubra lugens. Whether this insect has in all cases been the agent in destroying the Red Gums I cannot 
affirm. Probably not wholly, but I am satisfied that the greater part of the Red Gum trees which have 
died in Gippsland from obscure causes have been killed by its agency. 
The inference may be drawn from the above observations of forests having been killed by infesting 
insects, that each species of Eucalypt, or, at any rate, each group of allied species, will have attached to it 
some particular insect which preys upon it rather than'upon any other Eucalypt. If this is so, we ought 
to find some one tree selected for destruction out of a number of species ; and it is the case with the 
"The Forests of the Bellinger River," Bulletin No. 5, Forest Department, New South Wales. 
\Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xix, 85, 86, 91 (1885). 
I Trans. Boy. Soc. Viet., ii, 112. 
