Part I.] Stebbing : Insect Pests of the Himalayan Oaks. 
5 
green, constricted towards apex, the latter armed with several spines. 
Length 4 inch. 
. Life History. 
Little is at present known on the life history of this insect. The 
larvsB eat out wide shallow irregular galleries and chambers in the bast 
layer of the tree, these galleries being out of all proportion to the width of 
the grub making them. At times they are long and wind irregularly 
about in an undecided fashion ; at others the grub eats out a chamber or 
patch having irregular edges and no definite gallery or arms (Plate I, 
fig. 2). In all cases these galleries are made in fresh bast, the larva 
requiring sappy material for its food. The larval galleries or chambers 
are closely packed with wood excrement, the only free portion being the 
area occupied by the larva. They are roughly from 6 inches to 9 
inches in length and ^th inch to jrd inch in width. When full 
fed, the grub bores down into the sap wood at an angle ; the tunnel so 
made is elliptical in section and of about V' to in length {fig. 3). 
At the end of this tunnel the larva eats out an oval elongate pupal 
chamber parallel to the long direction of the tree (fig. 3). In this 
chamber the grub then pupates. Both entrance tunnel in the wood and 
pupal chamber are quite free of wood excreta. The beetle on maturing 
crawls up the tunnel in the wood, bores through the bark of the tree, and 
escapes. The appearance of the irregular shallow larval gallery in the 
wood with the elliptical entrance holes down into the sap wood starting 
from near the larger end of the larval gallery are very characteristic of 
this beetle and are easily recognizable (cf. figs. 2, 3). 
Damage committed in the Forest. 
The buprestid evidently, accompanies the more dangerous Scolytid bark 
borer Dryocmtes Hewetti and the longicorn Xylotrechus in attacking 
trees as soon as they are weakened by the Lorantlms parasite, Loranthus 
vestitus, which infests them. Also old dying trees are evidently sought 
out by this insect for egg-laying purposes. In a tree of this nature newly 
dead the galleries of the beetle were very numerous, the beetle having 
evidently accelerated its death. 
As has been often evidenced in Europe, small buprestid pests of 
this kind are quite capable of killing trees by themselves without any 
extraneous aid. 
