88 Indian Economic Entomology. [Vol. I. 



being" sufficiently large io allow the entrance and egress of the midge 

 while not allowing the fly to escape. He claims that this would serve 

 two purposes ; first, every maggot secured would be a fly put out of 

 the way of doing mischief; and, second, from its being unable to shelter 

 itself in the ground it would become a certain victim to the midge. 

 This is no doubt an excellent suggestion for experiment, but too little 

 is yet known of the life history of the midge to make it possible to 

 judge whether or no the suggestion is likely to be of use. It is worth 

 noticing, however, that if the midge were suited for extensive multipli- 

 cation in the plains of Bengal, where it already exists, in all probability 

 it would have become vastly numerous without artificial aid ; for the fly 

 upon which it is said to feed must offer, in the silk districts, an unlimited 

 supply of food, and we know that under favourable circumstances the 

 rate of multiplication amongst insects is excessively rapid. If, therefore, 

 as would seem not improbable, the midge is only able to attack and thrive 

 upon maggots which happen to be particularly exposed, — as, for example, 

 on those collected in a basket, — it is evidently unlikely to be of much 

 use, even if the measures suggested by Marshall have the effect of 

 raising it in vast numbers ; for the maggots which the midge is wanted to 

 destroy are just the ones that are not caught and confined for its benefit. 



Explanation of the figures. 



Plate V,fig. 1, Trycolyga bombycis ; a, imago enlarged; b 3 imago nat. size ; c, $ head 

 in profile enlarged ; d, <j> head in profile enlarged ; e, puparium nat. size ; f , imago 

 emerging from puparium, show expansions on the head; g, larva nat. size. 



II.— THE SAL GIRDER BEETLE. 



Ccslostema scabrata (?), Fabr. 



[ PI. VI, fig. 2, nat. size. ] 



In a paper published in the Indian Forester, November 1888, p. 503, 

 Captain E. Wood, Conservator of Forests, Oudh, writes that during the 

 rains coppice sal saplings suffered from an insect, which ringed the bark 

 generally within a foot or two of the top of the shoot, the part above con- 

 sequently dying and the coppice shoot becoming crooked or bifurcated. 



Specimens of the insect were forwarded through the Director of the 

 Forest School, Dehra Dun. They prove to be Longicorn beetles belong- 

 ing to the species Ccslostema cabrata, (?) Fabr. The habits of this 

 species are, no doubt, very similar to those of the allied American Hickory 

 Twig Girder (O'tcideres cingulatus, Say,), described by Packard in Bull. 

 No. 7 of the United States Entomology Commission, p. 71 (1881). 



In the case of the Hickory twig girder, the mother beetle deposits 

 her eggs in notches, which she cuts in the bark of hickory branches. 

 She then proceeds to gnaw a groove around the branch just below where 

 the eggs are deposited, so that the terminal portion of the branch dies, 

 and the larva?, on emerging from the eggs, feed upon the dead wood. 



