ALCIDES SP. 39 

be found on the green outer covering of the walnut. I first noticed 
the attack in the Baghi forest, Bashahr Division, my attention 
being attracted by the number of fallen walnuts littering the path 
beneath a large tree. I cut open some of these nuts and found 
in them the nearly mature fat, curved grubs of this weevil. 
A large number of nuts were examined, and four to five grubs 
per nut appeared to be the usual number present, but in 
many cases 8, 11, and in one or two as many as 14 larve were 
cut out of a single walnut. The attacks of these grubs cause 
the fruit to wither, and about the first week in July the nuts 
drop from the tree and the larve enter the earth and pupate 
there about the middle of the month. Fifteen to twenty days 
suffice for this stage, the first beetle obtained issuing on the 4th 
August, 
Locality from where reported. 
This weevil was discovered in the forests between Taklesh, 
Bahli, Songra, and Baghi, Bashahr State, North-Western 
Himalayas in 1gor.! 
Relations to the Forest. 
Many of the walnut trees examined between the above- 
mentioned places had their entire crops of seed ruined by 
the attacks of the larvz of this curculionid. The effect of these 
Operations within the nut is to reduce the inside to a black 
rotten mass of tissue and excrement in which the grubs live. The 
~whole of the kernel and inner hard shell (endocarp) is reduced 
to this state, and only the hard outer green covering (pericarp) 
with a very thin layer of the inner shell is left intact. No holes 
of any kind are to be seen on the outside of this gréen outer 
covering. By the time the inside of the nut is brought into 
this condition it falls to the ground into which its weight, 
which is still considerable, causes it to sink. The period of 
this dropping of the nuts is also that at which the monsoon 
usually bursts over the hills and the grubs consequently have 
no difficulty in entering the softened ground. 
11 placed the nuts I collected in a box containing alayer of moist earth. 
On leaving Simla on July 17th, Mr. J. H. Lace, at the time Assistant Ins. 
pector General of Forests, kindly undertook to look after them for me and 
he obtained these beetles. 
