106 Indian Economic Entomology. [ Yol, I, 



In the Collections of the Indian Museum are specimens of the Phyto- 

 phagous beetle, Diapromorp/ia melanopus, received 



The Orange beetle. . ,„„- « c, M . „ ,. ~ t, 



in 1885 rrom Sibsagar, Assam, trom Mr. S. E. 



Peal, who calls the insect the " Orange beetle," and notices that it eats 



the stems of tea-shoots, so that they wither and droop. The insect is a 



common one in India, the Museum containing a considerable number of 



specimens collected in Sikkim, Sibsagar, Birbhum, Murshedabad, Sahib- 



ganj, Calcutta, and Maldah. Gemminger and Harold, in their Catalogue 



Coleopterorum, give Bengal and Siam as the habitat of the species; the 



following is their synonymy :— 



Diapromorpha melanopus — 



melanopus, Lacord. Mou., p. 238. 



„ Dej. Cat., 3rd edit., p. 442. 



pallens, Olivier, Ent. vi, No. 96 (Clytre), p. 863, pi. 2, fig. 27. 



Some specimens of the insect were forwarded to the Indian Museum 

 Opium pest Oibbium in November 1877 through the Board of Revenue; 

 scotias. they were sent to England and submitted to Mr. 



F. Moore, who determined them as probably belonging to the common 

 European species Gibbium scotias, of the family Ptinidae, which com- 

 prises a large number of small but destructive species of beetles. 



In forwarding the specimens, Dr. T. J. Durant (Principal Assistant, 

 Behar Agency) reported that the insects were found in a well-closed 

 opium chest, which emitted a disagreeable damp odour. The outer 

 shells of the opium cakes were somewhat injured by the insects, which 

 had not burrowed into the interior, but simply eaten away patches on 

 the exterior. He noticed that this pest is nothing like the well-known 

 insect 1 that often attacks opium cakes and works its way right through 

 the shell, leaving a round hole. 



The following extract from a letter, dated 14th March 1889, from 

 Mr. H. M. Ross, of Calcutta, shows the suscepti- 

 bility of the weevil. The immunity from attack in 

 the case of the samples kept in bags may possibly have been due to some 

 accident, such as the spilling of a little kerosene oil from a lamp over 

 the bags, before they were put upon the table with the wheat samples j 

 this, like the naphthaline and bisulphide of carbon that have been experi- 

 mented with, would probably have the effect of keeping away weevils 

 for a considerable period. 



" To-day I discovered half a dozen samples of rice, which have heen kept in paper bags 

 on a table for the last eight months, to be free from weevils, while so close to them as 

 to be actually in contact were a great number of wheat samples, confined in the boxes. 



1 Probably Lasioderma testaceum — see Economic Notes, I, No. 1, page 37. 



