102 
STRANGE DWELLINGS. 
CHAPTER IX. 
WOOD-BORING INSECTS. \ 
' • • (I 
Beetles — The Scolytus and its ravages — Mode of forming the Tunnels — 
Curious instinct — Worm-eaten Furniture, its cause, and the best method of 
checking the Boring Insects — Ginger-borers — The Wasp Beetle, its shape, i 
colours, and tunnelling powers — The Musk Beetle — Its beauty and fra- 
grance — Difficulty of detecting the Musk Beetle — Its Burrows and their 
inmates — The Rhagium and its Cocoon— Wood-boring Bees — Willow ij 
Bee, its Tunnel and mode of making the Cells — Food of the Young — The ! ! 
Poppy Bee — The Pith-boring Bees and their Habits — Structure of the 
cells and escape of the Young — Shell-nests of Bees — Wonderful adaptation 
to circumstances — How the Bee burrows — The Hoop-Shaver-Bee — j 
Gilbert White’s description of its habits — The Sirex and its Burrow— Its 
ravages among fir-trees — Carpenter Bee — Mode of making its burrow — 
The Goat Moth — Its unpleasant odour — Shape and colour of the larva — Its 
winter cocoons — Escape of the moth from the burrow — Clear-wings Wolf 
Moth and Honey-comb Moth. 
We now leave the earth-burrowers, and proceed to those insects 
which tunnel into wood and other substances. 
Beetles generally burrow while in their larval state, though 
there are some that do so when they have attained their perfect 
form, and are able to bore their way through wood or into the 
ground with wonderful ease. 
Perhaps there is no wood-boring beetle which is known so 
well as the little insect which is called Scolytus dest?'udor . I am 
npt aware that it has a popular name that will distinguish it 
from other small beetles which bore into wood. 
The accompanying illustration will probably call to the mind 
of the reader, the insect which now comes before our notice. If 
he should have examined the bark of certain trees, particularly 
that of the elm, he will often have seen that it is perforated with 
circular holes, very like those which are drilled into worm-eaten 
