288 FAMILY CERAMBYCIDAE 



during the same year from Captain Barren, I. M.S., from the Shinghar 

 Forest in North Zhob (where I had been carrying out my investigations in 

 June), he made allusion to the work of this beetle as evidenced by the 

 numerous holes to be seen in dead logs, etc. 



To Captain E. H. S. James, Officiating Political Agent, Zhob, belongs 

 the credit of having been the first to draw public attention to the 

 presence of this insect in a Note on the further ravages of the Borer Beetle of 

 Shinghar for 1907, addressed to the Revenue Secretary, Baluchistan 

 Government. In this report Captain James wrote : 



Mr. Stebbing, in his book,* mentions three varieties of Boring Beetle at Shinghar, 

 viz., Polygraphus trenchi, Phloeosinus, and Pityogeties conifer ae. This season, I 

 believe, a fourth species, not mentioned by Mr. Stebbing, has been discovered. The 

 beetle is much longer and thicker than the other species, being about half to three-quarters 

 of an inch in length without its antennae, and of a dark brown colour. I secured two 

 specimens of both beetle and larva, which have been sent to the Forest Extra Assistant 

 Conservator. He has been asked to give any information about them that he can, and 

 then send them to the Quetta Museum. This species is far more destructive than the 

 borer. It appears to attack dry trees as well as green ones, and in the latter the larvae 

 were invariably found among those of the Polygraphus trencJii. In. dry trees they leave 

 a clean-cut hole extending far into the wood which looks as if a rook-rifle bullet had been 

 fired into it. ... In some parts of the forest there are large numbers of old holes made 

 by this species, but not many living specimens were found. They were discovered, 

 however, in both Old and New Shinghar. 



This is a valuable note on the life history of this beetle. These longi- 

 corn beetles, when in numbers, can of course kill off trees with as great a 

 facility as the bark-boring Scolytidae, as is evidenced by the attacks of 

 jEolesthes sarta in the trees at Quetta (p. 307). Sometimes, however, they 

 come into trees which have already been infested by the bark-borer beetles, 

 and this was the case in Zhob during the great bark-beetle attack of 1900-05. 

 Of course, when present, they greatly assist the bark beetles to kill off the tree. 

 I am of opinion that the beetles of this species do not lay their eggs on the 

 bark of dead trees. The young larvae require a sappy bast during the first 

 portion of their lives. The holes seen in dead timber are the old entrance- 

 tunnels leading down to the pupating-chambers from which the beetles have 

 long since issued. When beetles are found in the pupating-chambers in the 

 wood of newly dead trees it is probable that the eggs were laid in the tree 

 the previous year whilst it was still alive or newly felled or blown down. 



The subject of remedial measures against this insect will be found 

 discussed under the chilgoza bark-borers (p. 517). 



HYPOESCHRUS. 

 Hypoeschrus indicus, Gahan. 



REFERENCE. Gahan, F.B.I. Ceramb. i, no. 97, p. 104 (1906). 



Habitat. United Provinces. Gahan gives Karachi; Calcutta, Belgaum. 

 Tree Attacked. Sal (Shorea robnsta). United Provinces. 



* Forest Bulletin no. 3, 1905. 



