Chapter XXXII: Appendix: D (p. 182)

_Injury by Xyleborus dispar in England._

Professor Riley, in “Insect Life” (the U.S.A. Official Entomological Journal), says:—“Miss E. A. Ormerod wrote us on September 23, 1889, as follows: ‘... The beetle which is considered one of the rarest of the British Coleoptera, _Xyleborus dispar_, Fab. (formerly known as “Bostrichus” or “Apate,” Fig. 46) has appeared in such great numbers in plum-wood in the fruit grounds at Toddington, near Cheltenham, as to be doing very serious injury. I found, on anatomising the injured small branches, that one of the galleries which the horde of beetles (packed as closely as they can be) forms or enlarges, passes about two-thirds round in the wood, more or less deeply beneath the bark, whilst another of the tunnels, likewise occupied with its closely packed procession of beetles, was in possession of about two inches of pith, so that the rapid destruction of the tree was fully accounted for. The attack appears, as far as I can see, to disappear usually very rapidly, but I am advising owners to make sure. This disappearance, I conjecture, may arise from the excessive rarity of the small male of this species. Amongst about sixty ♀(female specimens) which I extracted from the tunnels I only found one ♂ (male).’”