6 
ASH. 
work in forming the forked part of the gallery, one going to the right 
and the other to the left,* from the short gallery whereby they 
entered. The specimens sent were taken from felled Ash timber, of 
which the bark varied from one-eightli to one-fourtli inch in thick¬ 
ness, the holes by which the beetles entered, and which appear on the 
outside like small drillings, being most numerous on the part where 
the bark was thickest. Measurements were carefully taken as to the 
thickness of the bark used for breeding galleries, and of these none 
were found in bark of less than one-eighth of an inch in thickness. 
On June 15tli the beetles were still laying eggs in some of the 
galleries, but in some cases these were full of grubs. The beetle was 
not found boring for laying purposes into the growing tree (with the 
exception of two or three holes, which were begun and deserted), 
conjecturally because the flow of sap at this time of the year would 
be injurious to the egg and the grub. Before a tree becomes suitable 
for a breeding place, it appears requisite that it should be so 
unhealthy, wholly or in part, that the sap should have almost 
entirely ceased to flow. At the time of boring the winter tunnels 
there is little or no flow of sap. (Also the beetle is then in its perfect 
stage, not in its feeding larval condition. —Ed.) 
From observations taken it does not appear that attack would be 
likely to occur to healthy trees unless there were felled or unhealthy 
trees near that were suitable for breeding places. From these they pass 
to other trees, healthy or unhealthy, and by means of the short winter 
tunnels which they bore into these trees the Asli-bark Beetle is 
injurious. Soils which from defective drainage, or which from their 
nature (as cold, stifflsh clays), are unsuitable for the Ash, by producing 
unhealthy trees produce also breeding places for the beetle. Also the 
custom, where there are large rough hedges, of laying the Ash, is 
objectionable, and Ash thus operated on is to be found in some 
districts much infested by the beetle. 
With regard to remedies, the removal of such felled timber, and 
dead or dying branches as are suitable for the breeding galleries, is 
* To complete the history, I may mention from my previous observations that 
the tunnels noted as carried on to the right and left are continued by the two parent 
beetles until they are about an inch and a half long (see fig.). The female then lays 
her eggs near together in a line along each side of the two borings ; from these the 
whitish, legless grubs soon hatch, and each eats for itself a tunnel in the soft inner 
bark, as nearly at right angles with the mother’s gallery as circumstances will 
permit; but as the grubs grow rapidly, and room is limited, the tunnels of many of 
the weaker ones and the lives of their tenants are cut short. The successful larvas 
complete their borings in about three weeks, and turn to chrysalids at the extremity, 
from which most of the beetles emerge in about a fortnight more, or gradually for 
some weeks, eating their way out through the thin remains of the bark covering 
their chrysalis cells. The beetles are about the sixth of an inch long, dark brown 
mottled with ashy, and with clubbed horns. 
