32 
Elementary Manual of Zoology. 
healthy trees, and although the pioneer insects may perish through 
being suffocated in the sap, their burrows lower the vitality of the 
tree and fit it to harbour insects bred elsewhere. 
In parts of Germany, in order to minimise damage by these pests, 
the plan is said to have been followed with some success of felling a 
certain number of trees th the sprmg, when the beetles are on 
the wing. The felled trees being ina withering condition, attract 
the insects and become the receptacles of vast numbers of eggs 
which can readily be destroyed by taking off the bark and burning 
it before the insects come to maturity. 
Scolytide have been reported in India as attacking oak, pine and 
sal, the damage in some cases being very considerable. It is one of 
this family also which drills the tiny holes so often noticed in beer 
barrels in India. In the case of the Conifer forests of the Sutlej val- 
ley, which have suffered to a large extent from the attack of a small 
Scolitid which is likely to be a variety of Tomicus chaleographus, 
Linu., Mr. Mein observed in 1887 that both Pinus excelsa and 
Pinus Gerardtana were attacked. The insect was chiefly active 
during the rains and disappeared almost completely in October. | 
Larve were noticed in the tunnels about July. Both tender terminal 
shoots and large branches were attacked, the minute holes pene- 
trating as far as the heart-wood. The only remedy attempted was 
that of lopping off infested branches and removing trees which had 
gone too far to be likely to recover. The students should examine 
the specimens illustrative of this‘group in the School Museum. In- 
particular they should sketch the curious arrangerment of the tunnels 
made in the wood. 
Cerambycida (Longicornes).—This large group of tetramerous beetles 
contains a great number of insects which are extremely des- 
tructive in Indian forests. The beetles may be recognised by their 
enormously elongated antennz and characteristic vertically set: heads. 
They havea peculiar stridulating apparatus situated between the 
dorsal plates of the prothorax and the mesothorax. The larve are 
flattened legless grubs, with firm integument and powerful mandibles. 
The only wood-boring larve which they at all resemble are those of the 
Buprestide, and they can be at once distinzuished from these by not 
having the prothorax specially flattened or disproportinately enlarged. 
The larva in many cases passes anumber of seasons in the wood 
before arriving at its full growth, a fact which is illustrated by the 
frequent emergence of the beetles from articles of furniture which have 
been made up for years. The mother beetle is said to lay her eggs in 
the bark, and after the tiny larva has tunnelled into the wood, there is 
often no visible sign by which to detect the presence of the insect ‘until 
the beetle cuts its way out, though the larva can frequently be heard 
