523 
made holes. The bark of the tree where attacked is dried up and 
dead. 
These beetles seem to be one of the genus Platypus , of the tribe 
Bostryckidce . They are inch long dark brown and sprinkled 
all over with short stiff hairs. The head is very short and perfectly 
fiat in front, antennce very short with few joints, the terminal one 
oval and flat, jaws black conic curved and deeply grooved. Thorax 
cylindric punctate, slightly indented at the sides sparingly hairy. 
Elytra oblong deflexed at the tip and then rounded quite covering 
the abdomen, with golden hairs on the apex and two short conical 
processes. They have numerous well marked ridges, and are also 
dotted. The first joint of the abdomen is very long, longer than 
the rest of the abdomen, so that the last pair of legs appear to come 
from near the tail. The fore legs have a very thick round coxa, 
the femora short and thick, tibia narrowed at base dilate forwards 
with short processes on the outer edge, the tarsi long and slender 
ending in two rather large claws. The second and^third pairs of 
legs are somewhat similar, but the coxae are much smaller. 
This animal or one closely allied I have found coming to light in 
the Botanic Gardens. It belongs to a group mainly at least feeders 
on dead wood and I have no doubt that in this case the Para tree 
was dead or partly so and the beetles attacked the dead portion 
laying their eggs in the dead wood, where the grubs could feed, 
the holes referred to are doubtless their exit holes, and where the 
beetles tried to burrow their way out through still living bark they 
got caught in the latex. The latex of plants like the para rubber 
tree is indeed its defence against the attacks of such insects which 
of course are unable to bore through laticiferous tissue. 
But though this beetle has I think merely attacked the dead por- 
tion of the tree, it is not at all advisable to neglect it. There have 
been known more than one case of wood boring beetles, living 
normally, on dead wood, gradually adapted themselves to attack 
living trees, and effected vast damage. It is just this set of insects 
that I should expect to be the greatest enemies of Para rubber 
under cultivation, and just these that we must specially watch and 
guard against. Fortunately it is easy enough to destroy all rotten 
wood ( especially that of the trees themselves), lying about the plan- 
tations, so as to leave boring beetles no breeding ground. To leave 
a dead Para tree lying about among living ones is nearly as bad as 
to leave a corpse to decay in a town. 
Ed. 
SARCOLOBUS GLOBOSUS. 
This plant is a long climber with a slender brown stem rather 
thicker than a crowquill covered with a brown thin bark. The 
leaves rather thin and fleshy ovate to lanceolate, 3 inches long by 
one and a half wide with a broad rounded base, and a petiole half 
an inch long opposite. The flowers are in small clusters on short 
