FAMILY CERAMBYCIDAE 271 



the colouring is still imperfect, the shades being probably light yellow or 

 brown, and a close examination will disclose the fact that the outer parts 

 are still rather soft and that the insect is only able to walk in a tottering 

 manner and is quite unable to fly. This resting stage of what appears to be 

 the perfect insect is common to most bark- and wood-boring beetles, and 

 the rest is undertaken with the sole object of allowing the thick and very 

 hard outer covering of chitin to consolidate and dry. A knowledge that 

 such a stage is passed through is of considerable importance for two reasons. 

 Firstly, several instances have come to light where the discovery of beetles 

 in this stage has been recorded, and quite wrongly recorded, as the date of 

 appearance on the wing of the insect in question, and with that emergence 

 have followed incorrect inferences of the periods of oviposition and hatching 

 out of the larva. Observations in the forest have led to the discovery that 

 these apparently correct dates of appearance of the beetle were solely 

 based on the fact of the beetles having been found in the resting stage 

 in the trees, the knowledge that the beetles would have remained in such a 

 position for another two or three months having been lacking. 



I shall have occasion to allude to one or two such records having led 

 to confusion in drawing up the life histories of the insects in question. 



The insects I propose to deal with here will be treated of in the order 

 of their at present accepted scientific position in the family as given in 

 Gahan's volume in TJic Fauna of British India. I would not have it 

 understood that we know at present anything like a tithe of our Forest 

 Cerambycidae. We do now know, however, some of the most important 

 of the pests of the family with which the forester has to deal, and their 

 description here will, it is trusted, lead to a fuller knowledge of the family. 



The bulk of the Cerambycidae are probably forest-living insects, and 



this is almost certainly the case with the larger 



Habits of and Damage ■, r . i r 1 a i i ^t • . 



done by the Family, members of the family. As a general rule the insect 



lays its eggs in crevices of the outer bark as near to 



the bast layer as possible, or, when occasions serve, at the edge of some 



wound in the bark. This latter is commonly the case with the poplar and 



willow longicorn, ^Iiolesthes sarta. 



The young grub on hatching bores down into the bast layer and eats 

 out a small tunnel parallel to the long axis of the tree. As it grows in 

 size this tunnel becomes broader and deeper in extent, and when the 

 mandibles are sufficiently powerful it grooves down into the sapwood. 

 For some months the grub continues to carry this tunnel onwards in the 

 bast and sapwood, curving about to a certain extent, but usually keeping a 

 more or less up-and-down direction parallel to the long axis. With the 

 increase in size and strength of the grub the tunnel becomes very broad, 

 two to four times the breadth of the grub itself, the latter entirely removing 

 all the green bast from the bark and grooving deep into the sapwood. 

 It thus becomes obvious that when the jjrubs are in numbers in a tree 



