250 



PAPER. 



Notes on Nesotocus Giffardi Perkins (Coleoptera). 



BY JOHN COLBURX BRIDWELL. 



The genus Nesotocus Perkins is one of the most isolated 

 types of heetles present in the Islands. While placed in the 

 Cossonidae by Dr. Perkins and associated with certain Central 

 American weevils by Champion, it is clear that they have no 

 close affinity with any of the Hawaiian Cossonidae and are 

 jjerhaps to be considered as entirely isolated and not present- 

 ing certain affinities anywhere. 



Dr. Perkins found the beetles of this genus associated 

 with the Araliaceous tree Cheirodendron wherever they had 

 been found and doubtfully reported them as attacking another 

 similar tree. 



The genus is composed of four closely allied species in- 

 habiting Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai. The Oahu species 

 N. gijfardi has always been considered one of the rarer en- 

 demic insects, having only once l)een seen in numbers Avhen 

 Dr. C. ]\r. Cooke, Jr., found huukm-oiis adults on ]\Iaumua- 

 houa peak in the Koolau Mts. in the early morning of May 

 1, 1914, running about actively over the trunk of a 'fallen 

 tree. In my collecting in the Hawaiian Islands since 1913, 

 it has l)een taken but once and then only a single specimen 

 which, as it happens, was found upon the large-leaved Snt- 

 fonia with Proterhinus maurus. At the head of Palolo Valley, 

 trees have been seen repeatedly with dead branches, the trunk 

 bored by the larvae but not until Xovember IT, 1918, were 

 we able to locate the beetle at work. Upon that date Dr 

 Williams, Mr. Swezey and the writer were collecting upon the 

 Castle Trail upon Kaumuahona when wo foiind a tree of 

 Cheirodendron GaudicTiaudii which had fallen in a land slide 

 and was heavily infested by the larvae of this weevil. This 

 was in one of the little hanging valleys or coves where nuui- 

 bers of these trees — rather an unusual species in this ]iart 



Proc. Haw. Entom. Soc. TV. No. 2, June, 1920. 



