INTRODUCTION. 
T HE extended study of the principal insect pests of the Sal, 
Shorea, robusta , was included in the Triennial Programme of the 
Forest Zoologist, drawn up by the Board of Forestry at Dehra Dun 
in 1913. In the course of investigation it became evident that the 
Sal is subject to attack by a group of shot-hole and pin-hole borers 
belonging to the Coleopterous families Platypodidae and Ipidae, which 
cause considerable technical damage to its timber. During the three- 
year-period 1912-13—1915-16, the life-histories of some twenty-five 
species of shot-hole and pin-hole borers have been under observation 
and the economic status of the majority of species has been determined. 
It was originally proposed to record the results of the enquiry in the 
form of a memoir on the life-histories of the shot-hole borers of Sal, 
but the outbreak of war in August 1914 rendered this impossible. 
The work of identification and description of new species is in pro¬ 
gress in collaboration with European specialists, but, as two are 
enemy subjects and the third is at present on military duty, their 
assistance is no longer available. 
It is the purpose of this Record to give an account of the life-history 
and economic importance of one species of shot-hole borer, Diapus 
Jurtivus , Sampson, which has attained a certain amount of notoriety 
in connection with the death of Sal in Bengal, and which also may 
serve as a type of the life-histories and habits of this little-known group 
of borers. Accounts of the remaining species cannot be published 
until the confusion which exists as to their identities has been removed. 
