April, 1926 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
79 
The larvae also feed liere, T only found one (can’t go 
cutting np chairs larvae hunting) a vile maggot like half 
an inch of translucent crochet-cotton. 
I conclude T brought the borers down in the cone, 
and as our furniture was made of fresh-cut live bambu, 
and was not attacked till it was bone-dry, it is more likely 
they came from the cone than that they had been invis- 
ibly loitering around awaiting the preparation of their 
sustenance. T liave just been dovui to our bambu clump, 
and though old and new dead pieces are untidedly ])lenti- 
ful, not a trace of our borer was visible, though borer 
holes as big as little sliirt buttons did occxir liere and 
there. T should be (piite easy in mind with the cone 
theory, but tliat since starting these notes' T have turned 
out the bag in which the seeds were kej)!, scrutinised 
every sepaT-ate bit, and sifted eA’en the dust, and found 
no Ha'c borers, and only one dead one, though the 
nxits were bored to death. Did they migrate to the 
bambu? If so. they have the discriminating ])alate of a 
tea-taster. Personally, TV1 .just as soon dine off cyead 
nuts as bambu stems. 
The borers seem to spend their lives eating— as the 
sacred writer hath it, they love darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds are AveeAu'ldy ; and they only 
seem to grace the outer world when ou spooning matters 
bent. They, at any rate, are not to he found now (Feb. 
2o) saA’e an odd scapegrace here and there. 
On the 28th Febrnary T cleared up the dust frmn 
under the long eliair in my bedroom, Avhioh T had deliber- 
ately alloAved to accumulate, and found it pei)pered over 
with dead borers. Dead in scores, unsmote by tlie SAvord, 
and there is not a living soul of them to he found in or 
about the house. This hears out my conclusion that they 
are short lived, but why the end came so suddenly — ^like 
an epidemic — T cannot say. Perchance their allotted days 
are foAv and circnmscribed. Theii* imago life is under tliree 
months, their otxen-air life ixnder three Aveeks, their end 
is catastrophic. 
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