Note 431 — LETTER VIII.

The larva of a Callidium (which Dr. Leach has discovered to be C. Bajulus) sometimes does material injury to the wood-work of the roofs of houses in London, piercing in every direction the fir-rafters, and, when arrived at the perfect state, making its way out even through sheets of lead one-sixth of an inch thick, when they happen to have been nailed upon the rafter in which it has assumed its final metamorphosis. I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Joseph Banks for a specimen of such a sheet of lead, which, though only eight inches long and four broad, is thus pierced with twelve oval holes, of some of which the longest diameter is a quarter of an inch! Mr. Charles Miller first discovered lead in the stomach of the larva of this insect.