FAMILY CURCULIONIDAE 413 



or (2) it lavs its eggs on the twigs near the young flower-buds in the autumn 

 of the year in which it issues as a beetle. No external holes are to be found 

 on the green outer covering of the walnut. I first noticed the attack in the 

 Baghi Forest, Bashahr Division, my attention being attracted by the 

 number of fallen walnuts littering the path beneath a large tree. I cut open 

 some of these nuts and found in them the nearly mature fat curved grubs of 

 this weevil. A large number of nuts were examined, and four to five grubs 

 per nut appeared to be the usual number present, but in some cases eight, 

 eleven, and in one or two as many as thirteen larvae were cut out of a single 

 walnut.* The attacks of these grubs cause the fruit to wither, and about the 

 first week in July the nuts drop from the tree and the larvae enter the earth 

 and pupate there about the middle of the month. Fifteen to twenty days 

 suffice for this stage, the first beetle obtained issuing on 4 August. 



This weevil was discovered in the forests between Taklesh, Bahli, 

 Songra, and Baghi, Bashahr State, North-West 

 Relations to the Himalaya, in 1901. 



Forest. , , • i 1 1 



Many of the walnut-trees examined between the 



above-mentioned places had their entire crops of seed ruined by the attacks 

 of the larvae of this curculionid. The effect of these operations within 

 the nut is to reduce the inside to a black rotten mass of tissue and excre- 

 ment in which the grubs live. The whole of the kernel and inner hard 

 shell iendocarp) is reduced to this state, and only the hard outer green 

 covering (pericarp), with a very thin layer of the inner shell, is left intact. 

 No holes of any kind are to be seen on the outside of this green outer 

 covering. By the time the inside of the nut is brought into this condition it 

 falls to the ground, into which its weight, which is still considerable, causes 

 it to sink. The period of this dropping of the nuts is also that at which the 

 monsoon usually bursts over the hills, and the grubs_ consequently have no 

 difficultv in entering the softened ground. 



Alcides scenicus, Fst. 



Reference. — P~st. Ajui. Mus. Star. Nat. Genova, p. 256 (1S94). 



Habitat. — Darrang, Assam. 



Tree Attacked.— India-rubber {Ficus clastica). Charduar Rubber Planta- 

 tion, Darrang. 



Beetle. — Elongate, with a long curved rostrum. Piccous brown with white markings. 



Head small, rostrum with a swelling half-way up, from which the antennae take off, broadest at 



top, black, shining, punctate, about half length of insect ; scape of 



Description. antenna black, thickened at top, rest brown. Prothorax widest 



behind, the basal margin V-shaped ; strongly rugose except anteriorly, 



where it is smooth and finely punctate ; three white narrow longitudinal stripes, one medianly. 



* The nuts I collected were placed in a box containing a layer of moist earth. On leaving 

 Simla on 17 July, Mr. J. H. Lace, at the time Assistant Inspector-General of Forests, kindly 

 undertook to look after them for me, and he obtained the beetles. 



