INSECT LIFE IN INDIA. 



443 



coppery stripes and reflexions. It is to be found throughout India 

 (Plate III., Fig. 6). Another brilliantly coloured Rutelid to be found 

 in the N.-E. Himalaya is Popilea cupricollis, a beetle with coppery 

 shining elytra and dull coppery thorax. It is shown in Plate III., 

 Fig. 7. The above few notes will demonstrate how widely spread are 

 the Melolonthids over the great Continent and the importance, from an 

 economic point of view, of their study being carried out. 



The Dynastides include the largest of the beetles of this family 

 although numerically the group is the smallest, containing only about 

 1,000 odd species. The insects themselves are large bulky creatures, the 

 males often having enormous projections and horns on their heads and 

 pro-thoraces, the use of which is at present but little understood. It is 

 concluded that in some way they are defensive and offensive structures 

 used by the males in battling for the females but there is little authentic 

 proof for this rather obvious supposition. The fact that the males are 

 much larger than the females and that the armature is usually confined 

 to them seems to suggest that some sexual reason exists for the 

 peculiar projections. They possess powers of stridulation, these exist- 

 ing on the dorsal surface of the abdominal segments immediately below 

 the end of the wing cases which rub against them to produce the 

 sound. Members of this subfamily are common in India. Amongst the 

 most important, from the position it occupies as a ruinous pest in parts 

 of the country, is the well-known rhinoceros or date palm beetle 





f 







FIG. 115.— Orycfces rhinoceros (Bombay aDd South India). Larva and beetle. 

 (Oryctes rhinoceros) of which the larva and beetle are shown in Fig. 115. 

 The grub is about 4 inches in length, large, stout, yellowish white with 



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