DEATH WATCH BEETLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 175, 25 June 1932, Page 2

DEATH WATCH BEETLE.

PLANS TO COMBAT IT. The secret of the decay of Chequers —the British Prime Minister’s official country residence—the Bodleian Library, Peterborough Cathedral, Westminster Hallj and numberless other famous buildings, is approaching solution at the Forests Products Research Laboratory, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire (a branch of the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research). The destruction caused in these buildings is duo chiefly to the death watch beetle, that deadly grub which attacks the timber work of all ancient buildings. At the Forests Products Research Laboratory a special building has been constructed and impregnated with the death watch bettle, whoso evolution is being closely studied. I>r. R. C. Fisher, of the laboratory, said: “It is a very slow job, but I think that now we are seeing the approach of the end. When we have the complete history of the death watch beetle from birth to death wo shall be able to calculate, within limits, what damage it can have caused in any particular buildings. Our experiments are concerned with the biology of this bettle. We want to know all about it before we give any advice on how to combat it.’’