INSECT LIFE IN INDIA AND HOW TO STUDY IT. 169 



To commence the study of this life will not require hours of un- 

 productive and wearisome search. The leaves of the nearest tree or shrub 

 will be found to contain their quota of defoliators, be tb.9y the caterpillars 

 of butterflies or moths (Lepidoptera), or the grubs of beetles belong- 

 ing to the Chrysomelidcej Curculionidce (weevils), &c. ; leaves and twigs 

 will be found yielding up their sap to numbers of aphids or plant lice 

 (Apludce) and scale insects (Coccidce), &c. ; their seeds will be riddled 

 by the grubs of Hymenoptera, Diptera and weevils. If, intent on our 

 study and with the wish to arrive at some definite reason for the death 

 or sickliness of trees, we carefully examine the bark, it may be found 

 riddled with pin holes. On stripping it off we shall drop into a perfectly 

 new world of life below — a world which spends its existence beneath the 

 bark and leaves its shelter in many instances but for a nuptial 

 flight. Here we shall find a veritable Tower of Babel of Insect Life, 

 consisting of genera of many different families, the individuals of which 

 are present with very different objects. The particular families and 

 genera present will depend greatly upon the condition of the tree we are 

 examining. If still green but sickly and dying, or newly felled, various 

 bark borers will be at work laying eggs in the best layer, the 

 larvae of which on developing will feed on the still fresh bark : 

 Buprestidce, Curadionidce, Cerambycidce, Scolytidce, amongst the 

 Coleoptera and various families of the wood-boring moths (Heterotera) 

 may be present ; other genera, some perhaps very minute, will 

 be feeding upon the oozing sap ; others again on the dying and 

 drying bark ; whilst numerous predacious Insects belonging to one 

 or more of the great Orders Ortkoptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, 

 Diptera, and Hemiptera will be found exhibiting an enormous 

 variety of shapes and peculiarities, both in their larval, pupal and 

 imago stages. Where all is new it would be invidious to parti- 

 cularize ; but there will soon be little doubt in the minds of those 

 who take up this study that the work of a lifetime would not suffice 

 to become acquainted with the life-histories of one tithe of the 

 predacious Insects which spend their existence beneath the bark 

 of our Indian trees and shrubs or inside crop plants or hunting 

 about outside for their prey, nor even to study them so far as to 

 be able to say that such and such a larva becomes such and such a 

 pupa and imago. The surprises in store for him who endeavours to 

 grapple with this aspect of the work alone will perhaps do more than 

 anything else to show him how little is at present known in India upon 



