FAMILY PLATYPODIDAK 631 



This tiny platypid was very plentiful in the Kachugaon forests in the 

 latter half of May 1906. Within twenty-four hours of 



Life History. a tree being felled it made its appearance and at once 

 commenced to tunnel down into the wood, entering 



through the bark or at one end of the logs. It drills circular tunnels more 

 or less straight, except at their commencement, into the sapwood. The insect 

 infests both the main stem and the larger branches. This little beetle 

 differs from most platypids owing to its great activity. Most of these 

 insects have very long, slender, weak tarsi, and are quite unable to progress 

 at all fast when out of their tunnels. This one, however, is able to run 

 about over the sal bark at a very rapid rate. It appears to infest only green 

 wood, and attacks standing green sickly trees as well as newly felled ones. 



I took a generation of this insect maturing in the Central Provinces 

 sal forests in the middle of April 1909, from eggs laid by beetles which 

 appeared some time late in February or early in March. From large green 

 sal-trees felled in the Banjar Valley I cut out maturing beetles, the eggs 

 from which their grubs had hatched having evidently been laid in the trees 

 after they had been felled in the previous February. I found other beetles 

 tunnelling into newly felled trees in the middle of April to oviposit. The 

 platypid tunnels down through the thick bark, selecting fresh sappy trees 

 and tunnelling in near the base of the tree in the butt or into the stump, 

 and then goes straight down into the sapwood, the tunnel curving here 

 and entering the heart-wood. The eggs are evidently laid at the bottom of 

 the tunnel, the grubs feeding on the sap or on outgrowths on the walls of 

 the tunnel. 



As in Assam, the timber, when the insect is numerous, is badly pinholed 

 on the external surface. 



The damage committed by this insect is very similar to that described 



for other species of platypid. The timber, so far as the 



Damage^Committed sapwood is con cerned, is badly pinholed, giving the 



logs the appearance of being more badly affected than 



they are in reality. This insect evidently appears in large numbers in 

 areas where fellings are made in the forest. 



Platysoma ? sp. (p. 106). This histerid is, I think, predaceous upon 

 this platypid and I), minis, and perhaps upon the sal-wood Vhitypus of 

 Assam (P. curt us). 



Beetle. Smaller than the one attacking Sphacro- 



Predaceous Insects. /rvyV.s ns\iii/icnsis (p. 487). Black, shining, compact, 



with black smooth thorax and striate elytra, the striae 

 far apart. Two posterior segments of the elytra are exposed. PI. Ix, fig. ix, 

 shows this beetle. 



Life History. Not common. It was taken from beneath the bark of 

 the sal-tree felled on 13 May 1906 in the Kachugaon forests in Goalpara. 

 It was apparently engaged in entering the tunnels, probably for ovipositing 



