77 
OAK. 
The Dockyard Beetle. Lymexylon navale, Linn. 
Dockyard Beetle, maggot, and pupa; magnified figs., with lines showing nat. 
length (after figs, by Prof. Westwood).* 
This beetle takes its name from the injury it causes to ship- 
timbers. It is stated to be common in the Oak forests of the North of 
Europe, and that it does not do great mischief in such localities, 
because it only attacks decaying trees, and not sound standing wood, 
but that felled timber, and especially ship-timbers, are badly perforated 
by its maggots.! 
The injuries which were caused to dockyard timber long ago in 
Sweden by this attack are well known ; since then Dr. Bernard Altum 
Uientions similar injury occurring near the Adriatic Sea; and Prof. 
Westwood notes it as being occasionally so abundant in the dockyards 
of France as to cause considerable damage; also, in 1850, Professor 
Westwood mentionedi having received, in the month of June of that 
year, specimens of larvae which he immediately recognised as of this 
beetle (L. navale), from a correspondent at Pembroke Dockyard. 
“They were found destroying the Italian Oak ‘thick stuff’ (the 
technical name for planks about four inches thick in store at that 
port). They were not seen when the wood arrived and was tested, 
but their ravages were becoming serious ” ; and the perfect insects 
were appearing by thousands in the Pembroke Dockyard in July. 
It appears probable that this timber was in infested state, though 
not observed to be so, on arrival from Italy ; but however that may be, 
up to the present time the Lymexylon has been a beetle rare in the 
extreme in this country, as an apparently true native ; I am not aware 
that it was until last summer, when I received the following report of 
his own observations from Mr. Joseph Chappell, Chorlton-on-Medlock, 
Manchester,, that notes have been given of it being found in large 
* See ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle ’ for 1850, p. 677. 
t ‘ Der Forst. Zoologie,’ von Dr. Bernard Altum. Vol. III., Insecten. 
I See ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ quoted above. 
