FAMILY CURCULIONIDAE 



427 



saplings after repeated insect attacks reach a stage when they appear 

 unable to send up new shoots, as in the examples D and F shown in 

 pi. xxxiii and pi. xxxv. 



The fine series of plates exhibiting the attack of the weevil show 

 (A) leading shoot of an unattacked sapling; (B) (E) a one-year-old seedling 

 showing unsuccessful and successful girdling ; (c) a two-year-old sapling 

 showing the same ; (D) (F) leading shoots of a two-year-old sapling showing 

 malformation resulting from attacks. 



MECISTOCERUS. 

 Mecistocerus raucus, Faust. 

 Habitat. Sal ween River, Tenasserim. 



Tree Attacked. Dalbergia sp. (cultrata ?). Kowloon Island, Sal ween River. 

 Beetle. Elongate, torpedo-shaped. Black, mottled with areas 

 of silvery grey, largest and most prominent on the elytra ; the legs 



coloured similarly. Head small, finely 

 Description. punctate ; rostrum rather thin, curved and 



depressed, brown, punctate, not quite one- 

 third length of insect. Prothorax widest behind, sides rounded ; 

 coarsely rugose-punctate, the punctures large and confluent on disk. 

 Elytra slightly wider than prothorax, constricted in apical third, 

 apex narrow, rounded ; basal portion coarsely rugose, punctate and 

 striate, the remainder more finely so ; punctures and striae inter- 

 rupted, save basally, by irregular areas of a very fine silky grey 

 and yellowish pubescence, increasing in extent in apical part. 



Under-surface black, punctate, with a short greyish pubescence. 



Mecistocerus ram us, 



Legs long, the femora thickened, with a prominent tooth three- ,> . ,- i veen Kj ver 

 fourths up on inner edge. Length, 6.3111111. 



I cut out a living specimen of this beetle from its pupal chamber in the 

 sapwood of a large standing dead Dalbergia tree on 



Life History. Kowloon Island on 9 March 1905. The beetle was quite 

 mature and ready to leave the tree. The gallery made by 

 its grub was an irregular winding one, eaten out in the bast and sapwood. 



Mecistocerus ? fluctiger, Faust. 



REFERENCE. Stebbing, Cryptoi-liynchits sp. Injw. Ins. Ind. For. p. 61 (1899). 



Habitat. Eastern Himalaya. 



Tree Attacked. White Siris (Al/n-.in prnccni). Tista Valley, Sikkini ; 

 elevation about 1,000 ft. 



Beetle. -Yellowish brown to dark brown, of typical cryptorhynchid shape. About one- 

 third inch in length. Three parts mature only. 



From a white siris-tree blown down in the Tista Valley forests 



during the previous monsoon I obtained a number of 



specimens of this beetle in April iM(j(). The eggs had 



been evidently laid in the tree some time in the previous autumn, and the 



FHI. 288. 



