FAMILY SCOLYTIDAE 



529 



\ 



certain extent before they began to wither and die. Further, the wood of 

 the twigs was still comparatively fresh, instead of being dead and rotten, as 

 would have been the case had the ringing been done the previous year. The 

 eggs are laid near the girdle, and the larvae mine up the twig (fig. b (2) ). 

 On becoming mature, the beetle bores its way out of the branchlet by a 

 short gallery at right angles to its long axis (see fig. 6 (3) ). 



An examination of many of the persistent dead twigs showed the plan 

 of action of the beetle. Low down near the base was the girdle, above but 

 near to which the egg or eggs are laid. Inside the twig, galleries will be 

 found running up and down the wood, made by the feeding larvae, and on 

 the outside one or more holes of exit show where the beetles have left the 

 stem. The larva apparently mines all round in the outer wood of the twig, 

 leaving a central core, and this, in old twigs, remains often as a small hard 

 splinter, whilst the shell of bark- and wood-powder crumbles to dust under 

 one's fingers. In small twigs I never found more than one beetle, but 

 in the larger several were present, and in large dry attacked twigs I noticed 

 several holes of exit. From this I conclude that in small twigs but one egg 

 is laid, while in the case of larger ones several eggs are deposited under the 



small flakes of rough bark. Whether these 

 are laid by the same beetle or not has yet to 

 be determined. In fig. b (4), a small branch 

 is shown which has been girdled in several 

 places by this beetle. The needles had turned 

 yellow ;md were dropping off. 



I first took this 

 beetle in deodar branch- 

 lets at the beginning of 

 June in the Nagkela 

 Forest, Kotgarh, Ba- 

 shahr Division, at an 

 elevation of about 6,000 

 feet in the North-West 

 Himalaya. Subse- 

 quently it was noticed 

 in several othrr parts of 

 the division. 



It was also iixle- 

 pendently found about 

 the same time l>y Mr. K. 

 Mclntosh, Deputy Con- 

 servator of Forests, at 

 Konain in the Jaunsar 

 Division, some hundred- 

 odd miles to the south- 

 east. 



L L 



(3) 



* 12 



V 



340. Cryphalus 



if,'i>i/iir<i. Steb. <t, dorsal and 

 side view of beetle ; /', deodar 

 branrhlels slio\\ ing method "I 

 attack of this insect: (i) the 

 girdle, (2) section of branch 

 shouiiij; the larval tunnel, (3) 



horizontal gallery and exit-hole made; by beetle on maturin . 



4 branchlet girdled in several places at (i) by this beetle. 



(d, from drawings by the Author. 



9003 



