DINODERUS MINUTUS. 363 

quent one of 48 hours in the crude oil. I had already been told 
by Mr. Truniger, C.LE., the officer in charge of the field tele- 
graph with the Thibet Mission, that the bamboo field telegraph 
posts sent up to him (part of the batch of 9,000 converted in 
1903) had remained unattacked by the beetle and had answered 
most satisfactorily, the oil exerting apparently no deleterious 
effects upon the structure. These posts were returned to store 
in Calcutta this year (1905), and a careful examination of them 
failed to show me any traces of beetle attacks: and not only 
this, but the bamboos appeared to have worn remarkably well. 
As a result of the experiments and observations made to date 
we may thus consider that the oil treatment prolongs the 
effective life of the bamboo by at least two and-a-half years, 
