FAMILY SCOLYTIDAE 489 



was being driven through a portion of the fine sal forests, and a consider- 

 able number of sal-trees had been felled on the line, of which some still 

 remained lying unbarked in the forest. Scarcely one of these trees (sal and 

 Terminalia} had escaped the attacks of this insect, and nearly the whole of 

 the logs and brushwood left from the cold-weather fellings had bred out a 

 generation of the beetle. Trees felled in January were at once tunnelled 

 into by the beetles which appeared on the wing in the forest in February ; 

 and those which were not too dry or had been felled at a later date were 

 infested by the generation of beetles issuing in April In this latter month 

 the beetles were swarming in large numbers in the forest wherever newly 

 felled trees were situated or where standing dying trees were to be found. 

 I collected with ease over a hundred beetles in under half an hour. 



I had felled several large trees which had a sickly appearance or had 

 newly dead leaves hanging on them. In one of the former I found the 

 upper part of the main stem, the upper fourth, and all the branches pitted 

 with the entrance-holes of this beetle. A careful investigation, however, 

 showed that although in some instances the beetles had got down to the 

 sapwood and even commenced the egg-gallery they had almost invariably 

 given up the attempt and left the tree. I explained this action as due : 

 (i) to the vitality of the tree still being considerable, and to its being able 

 therefore to respond to the attack with a strong flow of sap ; (2) to the 

 extra heavy fellings in the neighbourhood offering abundance of trees in 

 the condition preferred by the beetles for ovipositing purposes. Many of 

 these trees had only been felled a couple of weeks before my arrival. 



Another tree felled, on which the dead yellow leaves were still hanging, 

 had been heavily infested by the beetle in its upper third. The bark of this 

 portion on both main stem and branches was pin-holed with thousands of 

 the entrance and exit holes of this insect, the matured beetles having left 

 the tree to oviposit elsewhere. The lower portion of the stem of the tree 

 was still full of sap and quite green, and the generation of beetles now on 

 the wing in the forest were tunnelling into it to oviposit. This tree had 

 undoubtedly been killed by the beetle, and was a proof that the insect will 

 attack standing trees in the forest should they become sickly. The lower 

 portion of the bole was infested by the Hoploccniuibvx spinicomis beetle, the 

 cerambyx and scolytid working together in this area. 



Methods for dealing with insects of this nature have been alrea<l\ 

 described under siu\ilikcusis. I noticed here the power- 

 ful effect of thc hot-weather sun. In one of the l.adlv 

 infested Tcnninalia toincntosn felled trees the stem had 



been logged and one of the logs rolled on to the edge of the road, 

 where it lay exposed to the full sun's rays, the side attacked by the beetle, 

 which had previously been in the shade, being now exposed. On stripping 

 off the bark the insect was seen in various stages of partly grown larvae, 

 fully grown ones, pupae, and immature beetles. In every case, however, the 

 insects were dead, having been literally roasted to death under the powerful 



