26 
Indian Forest Records. 
[Vol. VI 
Curculionidae . 
Phaeomerus sundewalli , Boh. and one other species of Phaeomerus 
may be predaceous as beetles on Diapus furtivus , as they have been 
found several times in the galleries of the latter, by the side of, and 
apparently feeding on, dead male beetles. 
Chalcidae. 
A species of this family at present unidentified has been bred out 
from Diapus furtivus broods. 
Formicidae . 
(Ecophylla smaragdina , F. is an important enemy of the beetle. A 
Sal tree round which beetles are swarming is usually occupied by an 
army of red tree-ants. 
A beetle alighting on the bark is seized at once by a smaragdina 
worker. Although the thorax is crushed by the first grip of the ant’s 
mandibles, the beetle is not carried off to the nest until it is quite dead. 
To effect this two or three ants seize the legs and wings of a beetle and 
stretch the nerve chords to the full extent until the beetle dies. 
Nematoda. 
Dr. Butler, Imperial Mycologist, Pusa, who examined some beetles 
of this species, informs me that he found parasitic nematode worms 
in the bodies of several. 
Economic Importance. 
Economic Importance as a Primary Pest . 
In a normal healthy Sal forest, the damage, due to primary attack 
by this insect, is practically negligible. It is not able to establish 
successfully in a vigorous tree. Attempts to bore into the tree fail 
on reaching the sap-wood owing to the resin flow which occurs as a 
protective reaction on the part of the injured tissues. . 
Unhealthy and weakened trees are less able to withstand attack 
and may succumb, but it would appear that a very advanced state of 
unhealthiness is necessary. Trees defoliated for two or three years in 
succession, stag-headed and creeper-strangled trees, etc., are not 
as a rule killed by Diapus furtivus. Trees attacked by Hoplocerambyx 
spinicornis are usually infested with shot-hole borers also. 
In the case of trees suffering from fungus diseases, as in the Bengal 
forests infested with Polyporus Shoreae, the effective attack of the 
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