634 



FAMILY PLATYPODIDAE 



Beetle. Small, elongate, narrow, shining. Head black, thorax dark ferruginous brown ; 

 elytra yellow, bases and apex brown ; under-surface brown, legs yellow ; antennae yellow, the 



scape edged with a conspicuous fringe or 

 Description. brush of yellow-brown hairs forming a 



prominent bunch on either side of the front 



of head. Head concave in front, with coarse punctures and two deep 

 impressions on either side of a median line extending half-way to 

 vertex ; two tufts of yellow hair just above the epistoma turn slightly 

 upwards, four other tufts arising close behind. Prothorax oblong, 

 deeply indented at sides, with a slight median line from base to 

 centre, basal half punctate, rest smooth. Elytra finely striate- 

 punctate, the apices separately rounded. Length, 3.2 mm. to 



_ u ._^_ _ 3-5 mm - 



In July i go i Mr. C. G. Rogers obtained a few of 

 these beetles from the wood of a 

 Life History. railway sleeper of Quercus lamellosa 

 cut in the Darjeeling forests. The 



insect evidently oviposits in the timber of this tree, but nothing further 

 is at present known about its life history. 



FIG. 400. 



Diapns capillatns, 

 Sampson, sp.n. Darjeeling. 



UNDETERMINED PLATYPID. 

 I have been unable to obtain the determination of the following species. 



Platypus ? sp. 

 Habitat. Lower Burma. 



Tree Attacked. Pyinkadu (Xylia dolabriformis). Tharrawaddy, Salween 

 River, Tenasserim. 



Beetle. Mack, pointed posteriorly. 



The beetle tunnels directly down into the wood of the tree, the tunnel 



curving a little after it has entered the sapwood. The 



Life History. eggs are laid at the bottom of the tunnel, which is 



several inches in length. I took a dead mother-beetle 



in the egg-tunnel in a large girdled tree in Tharrawaddy in January 1905, 

 and others mature and just issuing (the first beetles of the year) in trees at 

 Kamamaung, on the Salween River, in Tenasserim, the first fortnight in the 

 following March. The beetle only oviposits in fresh sappy timber. 



Hectarthrum heros, Fabr. (pp. n6 and 166). This beetle is predaceous 

 upon the platypid found in the pyinkadu-tree. It was taken in some 

 numbers in the mature state on 8 March 1908 in company with the Platypus. 



