134 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
sent officers have opportunities of comparison which did not 
exist twenty, or fifteen, or even only ten years ago. 
In the Indian forests there are, of course, many noxious 
insects and fungous diseases which are destructive to the more 
valuable kinds of timber, but it is only of recent years that 
officers of the Department have been able to bestow much atten- 
tion on determining the pests, and observing and recording their 
life-history—work in which they have received invaluable assist- 
ance from the officials of the Indian Museum in Calcutta. 
Much and widespread damage is frequently caused by the 
caterpillars of two kinds of Pyralides, micro-Lepidoptera (which 
were determined about 1889), the result being an almost total 
defoliation of the teak both in plantations and in the natural 
woods, when the spring flush of leaves comes out. The incre- 
ment from April to July is thus lost, but fortunately a fresh flush 
of foliage comes in July, and there is no second brood of the 
insect to destroy it—otherwise the effect might be very serious 
in young plantations. 
Another insect that does much more lasting damage to the 
teak is the insect which often riddles growing stems with what 
are, in Burma, called ‘‘bee-holes,” resembling the borings made 
in European timber by the caterpillars of the goat-moth (Cossus), 
the wood-leopard moth (Zewzera), and the wood wasp (S7vex). As 
timber thus damaged is outside the Admiralty specification, this 
insect is (as yet) the most noxious enemy of the teak; and it is 
interesting that, as the first step towards the possibility of pre- 
venting its attack, this has now been discovered to be a large 
brown moth, Duomitus ceramicus, with long and narrow wings, 
having an expanse of over 4 inches; but its life-history has not 
yet been ascertained definitely. Among minor insect pests, the 
Chermes abietis-picee produces. galls on the Himalayan spruce 
(Picea Morinda). 
As regards parasitic fungi, it will interest British foresters to learn 
that the pine-canker fungus, Zrametes Pini, occurs as a common 
disease on poles of Pinus excelsa in the Punjab Himalayas, through- 
out the area in which the deodar is the tree of chief value. In one 
infected area of 18t acres, with a 4o-year-old crop, near Simla, a 
dense pole-wood was found, “diseased beyond hope of recovery.” 
To obtain some reliable data, a 1-acre sample plot was carefully 
counted in one of the best-stocked parts, and it was found that 
“out of 693 trees no less than 203, or say 30 per cent.,” showed 
