FAMILY CERAMBYCIDAE 321 



Gahan in the Fauna gives Allahabad, Nepal, Assam (E. P. Stebbing), 

 Tenasserim, Thagaea (Fea), South Afghanistan, Penang, Singapore, 

 Sumatra, Borneo, Philippine Islands. 



Trees Attacked. Sal (Shorearobusta) : Central Provinces, Chota Nagpur, 

 Bengal Coal Fields District, Bengal Terai and Duars Sal Areas, Eastern 

 Bengal and Assam Sal Areas; Duabanga sonnatioides and Pentacme suavis : 

 Taunggyi, Southern Shan States (H. W. A. Watson). 



This is one of the most remarkable of the Indian forest longicorn 

 beetles. It is the only known Indian representative of its genus, has a very 

 wide habitat, occurring throughout the sal areas of Central and Eastern 

 India and in other trees in the Southern Shan States, and commits very 

 serious depredations in the forest. A most curious feature in connexion 

 with the range of the insect is the fact that it appears to be absent from the 

 United Provinces and Oudh sal forests, where its place is taken by the 

 longicorn &olesthes holosericea, which, as has been shown, is a serious pest 

 in these areas. I have not taken this latter beetle in sal in any locality 

 where the tree is infested by Hoplocerambyx spinicornis. The first record of 

 the latter as a pest of the sal-tree appears to have been made by myself 

 in 1897. During that year it was taken in numbers from logs and newly 

 converted green sal sleepers in the Singbhum Division in Chota Nagpur. 



Beetle. A narrowish elongate black or brown-black longicorn, with a prominent projecting 

 head and long antennae. The elytra vary in colour from piceous to reddish brown. Light- 

 coloured red beetles are immature insects taken from the pupal 

 Description. chambers before the outer parts have hardened and darkened to the 



normal colour. Head, prothorax, antennae, legs, and under-surface 



are covered with a fine greyish pubescence ; the elytra are more densely covered with a silky 

 yellowish grey pubescence, which alters as the light falls upon it at different angles. Head 

 with the eyes separated above, the space between being deeply grooved. Antennae of males 

 longer than body by a fifth to a third of their length, according to the size of the individual ; 

 antennae of $ shorter than body. Prothorax longer than broad, the disk with a slightly raised 

 oblong space in the middle, the rest of the surface strongly transversely wrinkled, the ridges 

 broken at sides. Each elytron obliquely truncate at the apex, with a spine at the suture, and a 

 small tooth at the outer angle. The beetle varies remarkably in size (cf. fig. 32), specimens 

 varying in length from 20 mm. to 63 mm. ; breadth, 5 mm. to 17 mm. In pi. \\ii, tigs. 6, 7 

 show the $ and 8 the $ beetle. 



Egg. The freshly laid egg is elongate, cylindrical, slightly swollen at the anterior end ; 

 white, opaque, shining, with blunt rounded ends. Length, J in. The egg-shell is white- 

 and of a papery-like consistence (fig. 218, rt, b). 



Young Larva. The newly hatched grub is about Jin. in length, yellow, shining, thickest 

 anteriorly. (See fig. 218, c, d.) 



' 



II < I 





FlG. 2l8. a, Eggs of Hoploccramhyx s/>inu<>r>iis natural sixc and magnified (one) ; 



b, empty egg-skin ; <:, young larvae ; d, larva four to five days old. Assam. 

 9003 X 



