BUPRESTIDiE. 
329 
bronzy black to bright green with red reflections. Some species are 
covered with an efflorescence produced from a secretion in the skin. 
Warning colouration is not usually shown and the exact significance 
of the colour schemes is perhaps doubtful. The integument is hard 
and strong, the head partly sunk in the thorax, which is strongly fixed 
to the abdomen, the elytra accurately adapted to the body ; the antennae 
are readily concealed under the head. The mouth-parts are short and 
of the herbivorous type. The legs are short and fold under the body 
when at rest. The wings are large and functional in flight. Males 
and females are similar in appearance and usually also in size. The 
life-history of a few species has been worked out in India and agrees 
with that of the group as a whole. The larvae are borers in the tissues 
of plants, some mining in the leaves, others boring in the twigs, the 
branches, the woody stems or beneath the bark of trees. The larva 
is of a characteristic foim, legless with the thoracic segments swollen 
into a distinct bulb (Plate XX), the abdomen very long and slender. 
The swelling fits the bore made in the plant and gives the larva the 
necessary hold to move along the bore or to work with its mandibles 
against the hard tissues. Pupation takes place in the bore, the pupa 
lying naked in a chamber made by closing the bore with debris, as a 
rule ; the larva prepares the hole of exit for the pupa, leaving only a 
thin covering of bark through which the beetle can readily emerge. 
The beetles feed on leaves, eating the parenchyma and leaving the 
veins only. They fly actively and are diurnal. 
The large species have a life-history lasting one year at least, and 
the beetles are seen at one season in the year only. Some at least of 
the smaller species have several broods in the year depending upon 
their foodplants. Hibernation appears to be passed in the larval and 
in the imaginal states. A few are pests, those which breed in culti¬ 
vated plants such as guava, cotton, jute, groundnut and citrus trees. 
The family is of more importance in Forestry than in Agriculture. 
Hymenopterous parasites attack these larvae just as they do other 
boring larvae, and birds are known to feed on the beetles. 
This family is a very large one and widely spread, with nearly 300 
recorded 4 4 Indian ’ 5 species. Kerremanns divides the family into 
12 sub-families, which need not be touched on here (see Ann. Soc. Ent., 
