1 40 FAMILY BOSTRYCHIDAE 



The clerid beetle would appear to pass through as many generations 

 in the year as its host. Its larvae evidently feed predaceously on the 

 bostrychid ones in the bamboo, and pupate in their galleries. 



2. Hectarthrum heros, Fabr. (p. 116). This black predaceous beetle 

 feeds in both its larval and beetle state on the Dinoderns. 



3. Tribolium castaneum, Herbst. (p. 239). I took this small brown 

 Tribolinm from the galleries of Dinoderus minutus in the bamboos kept 

 under observation in Calcutta in 1903. It feeds semi-predaceously upon 

 the grubs of the Dinoderus beetles. I bred out the beetles late in May, and 

 know nothing further about its life history. 



THE EFFECT OF THE MOON'S PHASES ON THE PERIOD OF 



FELLING BAMBOOS.* 



It has been a matter of common knowledge for some decades past amongst those who 

 have had any connection with the cutting and export of bamboos in India, and to a certain 

 extent of poles as well, that the natives have long held a superstition that neither the one nor 

 the other should be felled when the moon is full ; they argue that the sap is then very 

 abundant, and unless the bamboos are well soaked in a tank and subsequently preserved with 

 plenty of smoke they will be rapidly destroyed by boring insects (cootee). The most serious of 

 these pests are the bostrichid beetles Dinoderus pilifrons and D. minutus. This curious 

 theory is held so commonly throughout the country that I have been for some years past 

 endeavouring to ascertain the causes which have given rise to it, the reasons upon which it is 

 based, and whether any scientific facts can be adduced in its favour. 



One of the explanations put forward is to the effect that the cootee, like many other wood- 

 boring insects, prefers to lay its eggs in wood which has commenced to wither and which 

 consequently no longer has a healthy flow of sap to interfere with the insect in its burrow. 

 This being so, the time immediately after the bamboo is cut down would be the most likely 

 one for it to be attacked. 



It seems to be a generally received idea that soaking the bamboo, as also other timber, in 

 water for a considerable time immediately after it has been felled, makes it less liable than it 

 would otherwise be to suffer from boring beetles of all kinds. It is supposed that not only 

 does the water prevent the beetles laying their eggs during the time the bamboo or wood is 

 immersed in it, but that it also drowns insects already at work and dissolves much of the 

 nutritive matter on which they otherwise feed. 



That bamboos, once sickly and dying or dead, suffer largely from the attacks of beetles 

 must be obvious to the most superficial observer who glances over a bamboo clump or 

 examines furniture, houses, fences, etc., entirely or partially built of bamboos. We are not 

 here concerned, however, with this aspect of the question ; our purpose being to discuss the 

 information at present available as to the effect the felling of bamboos and posts at different 

 phases of the moon has upon their subsequent immunity or otherwise from the attacks of 

 boring pests. 



In their Forest Proceedings f the Madras Board suggested in 1898 that investigations 

 should be carried out in this matter ; and the experiments initiated as a result, although made 

 in a few divisions in Madras only and in a manner which leaves room for improvement, are 

 of very considerable interest as serving to show that the so-termed superstition of the natives 

 of the country has perhaps some substratum of solid fact to rest upon. 



Before detailing the various experiments made in this country I will first refer to a paper 

 read by Ernest R. Woakes before the American Institute of Mining Engineers \ in which the 



* I published this note in the Indian Forester, November 1906 (vol. xxxii). 



t Board's Resolution, Forest Proceedings no. 255, dated 24 June 1898. 



J This paper was reprinted in the Tropical Agriculturist for October 1899. 



