59^ 



FAMILY SCOLYTIDAE 



eggs being laid at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the first week in 

 March I took mature and maturing beetles at the bottom of the egg- 

 galleries. Some appeared to have already left the tree, crawling up the 

 egg-gallery made by their mother to escape. 



Subsequently a generation of the beetles was found just maturing and 

 leaving a tree, on ii March 1905. The beetle apparently chooses the 

 hardest portions of the timber to tunnel into for ovipositing purposes. 

 The insects taken were maturing in tunnels driven into the hard w^ood of 

 a green stump of a teak in the Shwegun plantation, and the egg-tunnels 

 went alike through hard knots as through the knotless parts. 



In the case examined the teak-stump was riddled with holes, and the 

 numerous tunnels cut into contained for the most part quite mature or 

 maturing beetles, the latter still light yellowish-brown in colour. 



This small Xylchurus is of importance owing to the readiness with 



which it tunnels into the hardest teak timber and 



Relations to the ^^j^^^ ruins its commercial value. The life history and 



Forest. , , r 1 1 1 • c ^ 



abundance 01 the beetle requires careiul attention on 

 the part of Forest Officers in Burma. 



Xyleborus noxius, Sampson, sp. nov. 



Referen'CE. — Sampson, Ann. Miig. Xat. Hist. ser. 8, vol. xii, p. 445 (1913). 



Habitat. — South Malabar ; Salween River, Tenasserim. 



Trees Attacked. — Teak {Tcctona grandis): Nilumbur Teak Plantation, 

 South Malabar; Yindiak (Dalbergia ciiltrata): Kowloon Island, Salween 

 River; Pyinkadu {Xvlia dolabrifurmis): Kamamaung, Salween River. 



Beetle. — Elongate, cylindrical. Piceoiis brown ; prothorax darker, almost black anteriorly. 



Head punctate, antennae yellowish brown, club yellow. Prothorax longer than wide, base 



straight, basal angles oblicjue, sides slightly rounded, apex strongly 



Description. so ; with prominent transverse asperities covering more than 



anterior two-thirds of the surface, decreasing in size to highest point 



of disk and extending laterally to base ; rest smooth, shining, very finely longitudinally 



FIG. 378. 



Xylebflni.f noxius, 



Samps., sp. now, in Pa/- 



bergia cultrata. Salween 



River, Tenasserim. 



Fig. 379. 



Xyleborus /loxlns, 



Samps., in pyinkadu. 



Tenasserim. 



Fig. 380. 



.\vh'bo!'!is fi(>.r///s, 



Samps., in teak. 



Nilumbur, South 



Malabar. 



striate. Scutellum round, large, smooth. Elytra about as wide as thorax at base, not half 

 as long again ; punctate, the punctures circular, shallow, rather large, the interspaces smooth, 



