VI 



PREFACE 



me it soon became evident that it could not be adequately compressed into 

 -ingle volume if the request of the Government of India that the book 

 should be kept within handy reference dimensions was to be complied 

 with. I have therefore confined myself in this volume to the Coleoptera, 

 by far the larger part, as it is the most important, of the subject. 



The region dealt with is the same as that covered by the Fauna of 

 British India volumes, viz., India and Burma, including Ceylon. It is 

 considered probable, however, that the work will have a wider sphere 

 than that of India and Burma, extensive as is the area of the great 

 continent, and widely divergent as are its botanical and climatic charac- 

 teristics. In Ceylon, the Malay States, and the farther East, many pests 

 identical with or closely allied to those here dealt with, and having in 

 all probability not dissimilar habits, are either already known to exist 

 (as the distribution of many of those included in this work sufficiently 

 illustrates) or are likely to be discovered. The book should therefore 

 prove of value to planters and those interested in commercial concerns 

 connected with the growth for profit of rubber, tea, coffee, and allied 

 industries. The chapters devoted to the Cerambycidae, Curculionidae, 

 Scolytidae, and Platypodidae, all containing serious pests, a knowledge of 

 whose life histories may mean a saving of considerable sums of money, 

 will make this evident. 



The study of the insect fauna of the Indian and other Eastern forest 

 tracts now coming under economic forest conservancy is of peculiar value 

 to the zoologist interested in preserving, or endeavouring at least to make 

 an acquaintance with, those more uncommon species of the fauna which 

 are at present unknown, and which are likely to form important links in a 

 working classification of some of the more difficult groups. Many of these 

 links will inevitably disappear under the conversion of the tracts of primeval 

 forest into areas managed on commercial lines. For the forester masses 

 on the area a greater number of healthy stems per acre than Nature 

 attempts to do; while endeavouring at the same time to ensure the 

 prompt removal of all weakly, diseased, dying, and dead trees. Under 

 such treatment it is easy to understand that large numbers of small forms 

 "I insect life now to be found perhaps in fair abundance in dying and dead 

 stems throughout the primeval tracts of forest will disappear. Also, as is 

 the case with the shyer mammals, so is it likely to prove with the shyer 

 or rarer insects. The closing in and cutting up of the large tracts of forest 

 in which they formerly roamed at will, combined with the heavy toll which 

 the introduction of the modern rifle has exacted from their ranks, has 

 resulted in the bison or gaur and the rhinoceros approaching perilously 

 near to extinction in India. The former operation alone must, however, 

 in time have brought about the same result. Similarly the changed 

 conditions introduced with the progress of ordered forest conservancy are 



