78 
OAK. 
numbers in this country infesting living timber. Mr. Chappell 
mentions:— 
“ A few years since I found this dreadful pest in Dunham Park 
(Cheshire). I found Lymexyloji at first at rest at the base of an Oak 
tree which had recently been cut down, and which had cracked slightly 
near the centre. On carefully examining it I perceived the ovipositor 
was insinuated into one of the cracks. I took four other specimens in 
the course of a week or fortnight, all of which were females.” 
In the following season Mr. Chappell, with an entomological friend, 
cut them out of other trees, where they had infested the trunks in 
both the larva and imago state ; these had been infested while still 
growing, and had recently been cut down. The insect was observed 
to run quickly on the trunks of the trees, and enter the perforations 
previously made by it almost before it could be secured without the 
captor being on the alert. 
In the following season (the third year of observation) one was 
secured on the wing, and, following up this hint where to look for it, 
Mr. Chappell “ found it freely on the wing, both male and female. It 
is a very high flyer. The perfect insects might be seen on the wing 
on hot sunny days, towering above the giant Oaks,—I should think 
about one hundred feet,—perhaps higher than the beautiful Purple 
Emperor Moth soars generally. It was only occasionally we could 
capture it by the use of a net on a long bamboo, and patiently waiting 
until it descends to lower regions.” 
The beetle is of the shape figured at p. 77, and, as I have never 
met with the attack myself, I copy the description given by Professor 
Westwood^!' :—“ The male is black, with the inner base of the elytra 
(wing-cases), legs, and abdomen dirty orange-coloured ; the female is 
larger and brighter coloured, with the thorax reddish, the head, 
margin, and apex of the elytra and wings dusky black, the antennae 
brownish black, and the legs pale fulvous.” 
“ The larva is a long, very thin, cylindrical, white, fleshy grub, like 
a worm, with a corneous head, the first segment of the body produced 
into a sort of hood over the head, three pairs of short-jointed legs, and 
the terminal segment of the body swollen.”! 
With regard to the habits of this beetle, it appears, from the various 
observations, to attack the solid wood of old trees, or of felled timber, 
in which consequently the sap has ceased to be in movement. Dr. 
Bernard Altum notices it as occurring “on large old Oak-trunks, 
which are so far struck by decay that the bark has begun to loosen 
and fall away,” and that “ it comes out of cracks of these trunks, and 
rests on stack or cord wood, and swarms from the beginning till the 
* See ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle ’ for 1850, p. 677. 
t Id., p. 677. 
