22 Indian Museum Notes, CVoL VI- 



Distribution. — Reported from Dehra Dun ; Siwaliks (mihi) ; 

 Belgaon. Probably throughout India. 



Specimens present in — Coll. Ind. Mus., Dehra Dun (Oldham) 

 Siwaliks and Dehra (mihi), Calcutta (mihi). Also in Coll. For. Ent* 

 and Coll. Steb. from same localities. 



Life-History. — This beetle attacks and breeds in sickly, dying- 

 and freshly cut bamboos. I have found it infesting Dendrocalamus 

 strictus in large numbers. This bamboo grows in clumps in the 

 Siwalik forests. Bamboos from these clumps were cut at the com- 

 mencement of February and placed in a breeding box towards the 

 end of March. In July the box was examined and found to be an 

 inch deep in sawdust amongst which were enormous numbers of 

 the pilifrons beetles. The bamboos were riddled with holes and 

 galleries and larvae were present in the latter. Many of the insects 

 were left in the box with the bamboos up to November and during 

 the whole of this period beetles were always to be found alive both 

 in the bamboos and in the sawdust at the bottom. 1 It would thus 

 seem evident that the insect has several generations in the year, and 

 it is probable that these overlap. This experiment was made at 

 Dehra in igoi. This year (1903) I found the beetles on April 25th 

 flying over and setting upon and boring into the billets of a mixed 

 wood stack at the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. The beetles were 

 ovipositing and I am of opinion that the eggs laid were those of the 

 second generation of the year, since the 1901 experiments showed 

 that eggs must have been laid in the bamboos cut at the beginning of 

 February before the end of March, when they were shut up in the 

 breeding box. Therefore it is probable that the April beetles are 

 those of the first generation of the year matured from eggs laid in the 

 bamboos during the latter part of February or in March. 



The natives of India have many superstitions about this and the 

 other bamboo-boring insects. The one most generally believed and 

 which is now receiving careful study is that bamboos cut when the 

 moon is full are more severely attacked by the Dinoderus than those 

 cut at other periods. It is considered that bamboos cut when the 

 sap is low in them are less liable to attack. The beetle undoubt- 

 edly causes serious loss in India. It is often to be found in large 

 numbers in the bamboo superstructure of the thatch roofs so common 

 in Indian bungalows. 



3. Dinoderus punctati ssimus. 



Lesne, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. LXVI, 329 (1897). 

 Fairly long, parallel, reddish brown, with the appendages and at 

 times the basal portion of the elytra lighter coloured. No long 



1 Vide Departl. Not. Ins. aft. For. No. 2, p. 168 (1903). 



