FAMILY PLATVPODIDAE 631 



This tiny platypid was very plentiful in the Kachuj^aon forests in the 



latter half of May igo6. Within twenty-four hours of ■ 



Life History. a tree being felled it made its appearance and at once 



commenced to tunnel down into the wood, entering 



through the bark or at one end of the logs. It drills circular tunnels more 



or less straight, except at their commencement, into the sapwood. The insect 



infests both the main stem and the larger branches. This little beetle 



differs from most platypids owing to its great activity. Most of these 



insects have very long, slender, weak tarsi, and are quite unable to progress 



at all fast when out of their tunnels. This one, however, is able to run 



about over the sal bark at a very rapid rate. It appears to infest only green 



wood, and attacks standing green sickly trees as well as newly felled ones. 



I took a generation of this insect maturing in the Central Provinces 

 sal forests in the middle of April igog, from eggs laid by beetles which 

 appeared some time late in February or early in March. From large green 

 sal-trees felled in the Banjar Valley I cut out maturing beetles, the eggs 

 from which their grubs had hatched having evidently been laid in the trees 

 after they had been felled in the previous February. I found other beetles 

 tunnelling into newly felled trees in the middle of April to oviposit. The 

 platypid tunnels down through the thick bark, selecting fresh sappy trees 

 and tunnelling in near the base of the tree in the butt or into the stump, 

 and then goes straight down into the sapwood, the tunnel curving here 

 and entering the heart -wood. The eggs are evidently laid at the bottom of 

 the tunnel, the grubs feeding on the sap or on outgrowths on the walls of 

 the tunnel. 



As in Assam, the timber, when the insect is numerous, is badly pinholed 

 on the external surface. 



The damage committed by this insect is very similar to that described 



for other species of platypid. The timber, so far as the 

 Damage Committed ■, • j-uji uij •• ^i 



in Forest. sapwood IS concerned, is badly pmholed, givmg the 



logs the appearance of being more badly affected than 



they are in reality. This insect evidently appears in large numbers in 



areas where fellings are made in the forest. 



Platysoma ? sp. (p. 106). — This histerid is, I think, predaceous upon 

 this platypid and D. uiirns, and perhaps upon the sal-wood Platypus of 

 Assam (P. curtus). 



Beetle. — Smaller than the one attacking Sphacro- 



Predaceous Insects, trypes cissamensis (p. 487). Black, shining, compact, 



with black smooth thorax and striate elytra, the striae 



far apart. Two posterior segments of the elytra are exposed. PI. Ix, hg. 11, 



shows this beetle. 



Life History. — Not common. It was taken from beneath the bark of 

 the sal-tree felled on 13 May igo6 in the Kachugaon forests in Goalpara. 

 It was apparently engaged in entering the tunnels, probably for ovipositing 



