FAMILIES STAPHYLINIDAE AND HISTERIDAE loi 



Polygraphus pini and Crypturgus pusillns beetles in Jaunsar. The beetle 

 has a superficial resemblance to a histerid (Parumalns, etc.). The insect is 

 predaceous, feeding on the scolytid f^rubs and perhaps on the pupae. I have 

 also taken it from spruce. 



Family HISTERIDAE. 



The forest histerids are for the most part easily recognizable beetles, 

 being short, hard, and compact, the parts fitting 

 Beetle. accurately together ; usually black, occasionally brown, 



in colour, and shining ; but some considerable metallic 

 colouring occurs in the family. The elytra fit very closely together, 

 are very hard, with their apices usually truncate, leaving exposed two 

 segments of the abdomen ; the prothorax is often 

 incised on the anterior edge, the head fitting into 

 the incision ; in some divisions of the family the 

 head is retractile ; the antennae are elbowed, eleven- 

 jointed, the basal joint being long and the terminal 

 three forming a club. 



The beetles vary in shape, some of the bark-living 

 forms being thin, flat, and squarish, whilst others 

 are compact cylinders, resembling in section the bark- 

 and wood-borers upon w^hich they prey. The legs are 

 short, the tibiae often flattened and spined, and perhaps 

 aid the beetle in making a way through tunnels 

 and galleries filled with wood-dust. The mandibles ^ig. 66.—Hololepta 

 are strong and powerful, and in some species long. baunlyi, Mars. Siwaliks. 



The type of Niponius larva is an elongate pinkish-yellow or whitish- 

 yellow grub, with stout, well-developed mandibles, a 

 Larva. pair of jointed processes or cerci to the end of the 



abdomen, a well-developed thoracic segment with a hard 

 chitinous plate dorsally, followed by two narrow segments. The median 

 abdominal segments are the broadest. The under-surface is usually paler 

 than the upper, and often translucent. I have never actually reared either 

 of the Niponius beetles described below from their grubs. 



A smaller type of grub is that of the genus Teretriosoina, which has the 

 abdominal segments narrower, the median ones not much broader than 

 those anterior and posterior to them. 



The Niponius pupa, w^hich is the only one I know, is elongate, straight, 



and white, with a vertical head and free limbs, wings, 



Pupa. etc. The Niponius egg is large, spherical, and pale 



translucent. 



The histerid family is a most interesting one to the forester in India, 



owing to the fact that it contains a number of very important predators on 



