194 FAMILY BUPRESTIDAE 



8 mm. to 10.25 mm. ; breadth, 3 mm. to 5.25 mm. The deep indigo-blue colour and the red 

 elytral patches easily serve to distinguish this insect. 



Larva.— A small, elongate, white, flat grub, with a greatly developed chitinous orange 

 prothoracic segment. 



The first beetles of the year appear about June in North India, and lay 

 eggs on the bark of green branches of the sal-tree, 



Life History. or on the main stem of young trees. The larva, on 



hatching out, feeds in the cambium layer and outer 

 sapwood, grooving out winding galleries which take the direction of the 

 longitudinal axis of the branch or stem. These galleries are several inches 

 in length, and are blocked with the wood-dust and excreta of the larvae. 

 When full-fed the grub bores down deeper into the sapwood, eating out 

 there a small pupating-chamber. The pupating-chamber and entrance- 

 tunnel to it are free of wood-dust and excreta. On maturing, the beetle 

 crawls up the tunnel, bites its way through the bark, and escapes from 

 the tree. 



Only in June have I taken beetles on the wing. The first beetles 

 obtained I bred out from nearly full-grown larvae taken in sal branches in 

 the Siwalik Forest Division in February-March. These grubs pupated in 

 April and the beetles issued in June. I have taken larvae in the trees 

 in September, and am of opinion that a second generation of this insect 

 issues some time in October or early November. The winter is passed 

 through in Northern India in the larval stage. 



The danger of these small buprestids when they infest broad- 

 leaved trees is greatest in areas of young growth 

 Damage Committed ^^,^-^j^ ^^.^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ another are in a sickly 

 in the Forest. ,.. ^. t -1,1, .i- 



condition. For instance, I noticed that the insect was 



in considerable abundance (in company with the sal Sphaerotrypes, see 

 p. 476) in the sal areas in the Siwaliks and neighbouring forests to the 

 east of the Ganges, which suffered so severely from the great frosts of 

 February 1905. The insect also infests trees which have suffered under 

 the heavy defoliating attacks of Suana concolor, especially when these 

 are combined with those of the Monophlehus scale pest, as is so often the 

 case when the latter insect is swarming in the forest. 



It is the habit of this buprestid of infesting in numbers sickly trees 

 which would otherwise recover that makes it necessary that its appearance 

 and life history should be well known to the Forest Officer. 



Since the habitat of the insect stretches outside the area over which 

 the sal-tree is found, it is obvious that it must infest other species of trees 

 in addition to the sal. 



Chalcid.— Specimens of a small chalcid fly, at present undetermined, 

 were bred out with some of this buprestid from infested sal branches. The 

 grub of the fly probably feeds parasitically upon the buprestid larvae. 



