FAMILY CLERIDAE 185 



in a crevice of the bark close by, or she herself enters the tunnel of her prey 

 and deposits the eggs in the egg-gallery of the host. 



In the case of the Himalayan Thanasimus which preys upon a number 

 of the coniferous Scolytidae, the eggs are laid- in crevices of the bark near 

 the entrance-holes of the bark-borers, since the clerid beetle is far too large 

 to enter the tunnel herself. With the bamboo shot-borer beetle things are 

 different. A small species of clerid (Till us notatus) preys upon the bamboo 

 Dinoderus, as we have seen (p. 139), and in this case the clerid has 

 the same cylindrical build as the bostrychid beetle, and enters the egg- 

 tunnels of the latter in the wood and oviposits there. 



The discovery in 1901 of the Himalayan Thanasimus was of considerable 

 interest and importance, since this insect, as is shown in the chapter on 

 Scolytidae (p. 508), occupies a position in the Himalayan coniferous forests 

 exactly analogous to the place occupied by Clenis formicarius, the well-known 

 scolytid predator of the European coniferous forests. The Himalayan insect 

 is larger than its European confrere and, if anything, even more carnivorous, 

 the number of beetles devoured by a female of the Himalayan species being 

 extraordinarily large. 



I have collected a number of other predaceous clerids throughout the 

 forests of the country, and a study of this important family, or the 

 predator portion of it, in the forest, is eminently desirable. I have not 

 as yet been able to determine the insect or insects preyed upon by my 

 captures in each case. There is a species of Tillicera, however, some- 

 what resembling the Himalayan Thanasimus, which preys upon the Assam 

 sal bark-borer Sphaerotrypes assamensis (p. 486), and throughout the country 

 there are doubtless others of equal economic importance. 



I lay stress upon the fact that it is desirable that forest officials should 

 have an acquaintance with the more important of the useful predaceous 

 insects, because, in the absence of such knowledge, a campaign of destruction 

 may be carried on against the very insects which it should be the forester's 

 aim, as far as possible, to protect. I remember that on one occasion, up in 

 the Western Himalaya, two forest guards, with a zeal more commendable 

 than the knowledge displayed, brought me a hundred or more dead examples 

 of the valuable Himalayan Thanasimus above mentioned. These, they 

 were of opinion, were the insects which were responsible for the 

 condition of some young deodar poles badly infested by Scolytus. The gaudy- 

 coloured clerid, flitting about and running over the stems of tin- trees, was 

 easily visible, and marked down as the author of the destruction, whilst 

 the inconspicuous black-coated Scolytus beetle, although present in lai 

 numbers, escaped detection. 



It did not require very much teaching on my part during the next to- 

 days to convert those two forest guards into experts so far as a km>\vl< 

 of the deodar insect foes and friends present at the period was concerned, 

 and a visit a year or so afterwards showed that they had not forgotten the 

 knowledge thus acquired. 



