FAMILY CANTHARIDAE 247 



Western Himalaya, and the traveller may occasionally in the early summer 

 suddenly find the road and neighbouring jungle covered by a crawling mass 

 of this very beautiful cantharid. 



The genus Meloe is wingless, the elytra also being very short. 



In habits the family varies. Some forms feed on the leaves and flowers 

 of plants, shrubs, and trees, others eating the fruits. The habits and life 

 histories of the forest forms are not well known. The insects are of some 

 commercial importance owing to the oil which they excrete. This comes 

 from the femora of the legs, and is present in the genera Mylabris, Cantharis, 

 and the wingless Meloe. 



MYLABRIS. 

 Mylabris pustulata, Thunb. 



REFERENCE. Thunb. Diss. Nov. Spec. Ins. vi, p. 113, f. 13 (1791). 



Habitat. Throughout Northern India. 



Trees Attacked. Artocarpus sp., Hibiscus, and other garden shrubs. 

 Dehra Dun. 



Beetle. -Elongate, black, the elytra marked with orange 

 or red bands and blotches. Head large and prominent, 



broader than prothorax anteriorly 

 Description. and attached to it by a .slender 



neck ; the black antennae rather 



short, thickest apically. Head densely punctate and pu- 

 bescent beneath. Prothorax widest medianly, densely punc- 

 tate, disk very convex with a central depression, margins 

 and under-surface set with a long dense black pubescence. 

 The elytra are soft and leathery, wider than the prothorax 

 at the base, rounded and broadest apically. They are 

 pent-roof shaped and do not meet accurately along suture. Mylabris ph 

 A rounded yellow or orange blotch near the base ; an irre- .Northern India, 



gular transverse band just below the middle and a second 



usually broader zig-zag one in apical third. Under-surface black, pubescent, and punctate. 

 Length, 18-29 mm. 



In Northern India, at Dehra Dun, this beetle makes its appearance on 



the wing at the beginning of July, soon after the burst 



Life History. of the monsoon, and may be found from then onwards 



till October; it is in greatest abundance perhaps in July 



and August. The beetles feed on the leaves, green rind of twigs, and (lowers 

 of a variety of shrubs. They are particularly fond of the Ifiln^ii^, of 

 which they destroy the flower-buds, petioles, and leaves, and -trip the rind 

 from the green shoots. When abundant I have also watched them feeding on 

 the fruit of a species of Artocurpn* in Dehra, peeling and stripping the 

 pericarp down to the stone. Haifa dozen beetles will easily strip a fruit 

 to the stone, and the injury done to shrubs and small trees, more especially 

 in the garden, in a year when these beetles are very numerous, is extensive. 



