Part V ] Beeson : Larvae and Life Histories of Prionine Beetles . 5 
CHAPTER II 
The Economic Importance of the Sundri Borers. 
Since 1908 various reports of attacks on sundri by boring insects have 
been received at the Forest Research Institute, usually accompanied 
by specimens. In almost every case a different insect was sent in and 
referred to as “the” sundri borer. Logs received in 1910 (F. L. 26G of 
9th April 1910) yielded longicorn beetles, which were identified as 
Dior thus cinereus , White, Derolus discicollis, Gahan, Gelonaetha hirta , 
Fairm., and species of Glenea (Lamiidae) and Chrysobothris (Buprestidae). 
In Departmental Notes, I, page 420, is given an account of a platypodid 
beetle, Hiatus (?) heritierae } Sfcebbing, which is referred to as the borer 
of sundri, Heritiera littoralis (=-Fomes) , and this beetle is subsequently 
mentioned on one or two occasions in the Annual Reports on Forest 
Administration for Bengal. In 1913 (F. L. 1106 of 4th November 1913) 
and again in 1914 (F. L. 1233 of 8th December 1913) specimens of 
sundri logs containing borers were received at Dehra Dun and from 
these was bred out a species of Platypodidae, Crossotarsus squamulatus , 
Chap., previously unrecorded from India. c< Indian Forest Insects ” 
which appeared in 1914 contains only one reference to an insect attacking 
sundri, i.e., Oiapus? lieritierae , Stebbing (pp. 628-630). This species 
has since been shown to be identical with Crossotarsus saundersi, 
Chap. (Beeson, 1915, p. 297). 
In February 1915 the Zoologist visited the Sunderbans with the 
object of deciding the relative importance of the species comprising 
the borer fauna of sundri, and incidentally to determine the effects, if 
any, of the cyclone of 1909 on the subsequent abundance of bflfrers. 
A cursory examination revealed no signs of localised insect attacks 
in coupes or in other parts of the forest, but an appreciable number of 
recently dead and dying trees was met with under certain conditions, 
(a) scattered in a narrow zone along the banks of Khals (creeks), and on 
the concave banks of most of the larger channels in the delta, and (b) in 
land around the margins of wet depressions and swamps. Omitting all 
the trees on the extreme edges of water channels, which had obviously 
died as a result of cutting back by the river, those trees were examined 
which were of very recent death, as indicated by the degree of wilting of 
the foliage. The majority of trees contained boring larvae of several 
species, but in a small proportion there were no traces of insect attack; 
in many cases it was possible to determine that the insects had attacked 
the tree subsequent to its death. The roots of a series of sample trees 
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