252 



"When these emerged it was not convenient to secure their 

 natural food, so green branches of the cultivated Nothopanax 

 Guilfoylei were placed in the jars with the living weevils. 

 Some of these Lranches died and the l^ark in the damp moss 

 became soft rotten like that in which the larvae had been 

 originally found. Upon this the adults fed readily and also 

 upon the tender soft green living bark of the growing tips. 

 The adults were kept alive in this way for a month or more 

 but no oviposition was observed. 



Subsequently on the day the colony was found, the author 

 found unmistakable pupal chambers of this species in the 

 small dead branches of TetrapJasandm oahuensis, and on 

 January 12, after securing our material from the original 

 tree we continued along the Castle Trail coming down from 

 Mount Olympus into Manoa Valley, studying .the various 

 Araliaceous trees encountered along the way. We were in this 

 way able to make certain that this insect attacks the living 

 trees of Cheirodendron platyphyllum, C. GaudUhaudli, Ptero- 

 tropia, Tefraplasandra oalmcnsis, and T. meiandra — all the 

 Araliaceous trees encountered. 



The larvae were found in small branches dead at the tip 

 and dying below, the young larvae living in apparently un- 

 injured bark at the edge of the dying portion. Frequently 

 in these smaller branches the larva, in making its pupal 

 chamber, penetrates into the large pith cavities and trans- 

 forms there. 



At various times the work of this weevil has been ob- 

 served from Kuliouou at the extreme southeastern limits of 

 its food plants in the Koolau mountains and as far northwest 

 as Lanihuli, the peak on the northwest side of the ISTuuanu 

 Valley. Prol)ably, since the weevil is a strong flyer, it ex- 

 tends over this island wherever its food plants are found. 

 We have never found its work on the lowland Reynoldsia, 

 all traces of its work having been found at elexations of about 

 t\\elve hundred feet and above. There seems but little doubt 



