284 
TIMBER BEETLE. 
than two. These holes are nearly semicylindrical, 
expressing exactly the form of the grub. One 
would wonder, continues Mr. Kirby, how so small 
and seemingly so weak an animal could have 
strength to excavate so deep a mine ; but when we 
see its jaws, our wonder ceases : these are large, 
thick, and solid sections of a cone divided longi- 
tudinally, which in the act of mastication apply to 
each other the whole of their interior plane surface, 
so that they grind the food of the insect like a 
pair of millstones. Early in March all the larvae, 
except some sickly ones, were observed to have en- 
tered the wood in this manner. At the place in 
the bark opposite to the hole, the perfect insect 
gnaws its way out of its prison when it makes its 
appearance, and the beetles continue to come forth 
from the twentieth of May till about the twentieth 
of June. 
Mr. Kirby observes that this destructive little in- 
sect attacks only such timber as has not been strip- 
ped of its bark ; a circumstance which ought to 
be known and attended to by all persons who have 
any concern with this article ; for the bark is a 
temptation not only to the insect in question, but 
also to many others ; and a great deal of the injury 
which is done to timber would be prevented, if 
other trees besides the oak were barked as soon as 
they are felled. 
The larvae of a species of this genus (the Ceram-r 
byx damicornis, Linn.) are so much admired as a 
