The genera Tomicus and Bostrichus are largely distributed over all India.
A Burma species of the with its larva, is exceedingly destructive to bamboos. In the course of one rain they will sometimes utterly destroy a dwelling the bamboos of which had been felled in the preceding dry season, while bamboos felled at the close of the rains remained unharmed.
Saw-flies, Tenthredo, and their pseudo-cater pillars, never attack wood. They do comparatively little damage.
The longicornes are a highly-diversified family of beetles. They attack dead vegetable matter. A remarkable larva, thought to be one of the Prionii, was found in the stem of the tea plant in Northern India. The mother beetle punctured the main stem of the plant near the ground, and inserted the egg, and the larva, when hatched, bored into the pith of the stem, and then bored down and up, destroying the plant. Mr. Thompson offers no suggestion how to destroy them.
The beetle Cerambyx vatica, Thompson, attacks the sal or Vatica robusta when felled. These insects grow to a great size, but never attack the tree when its bark has been removed. This and the little buprestis are the only beetles which attack the Vatica robusta. The larva, soft-bodied grubs, of the Cerambyeida and Buprestidm can easily be destroyed by pouring scalding water into their holes, or by immersing the logs in water for a couple of days. Hot winds which dry the timber, and also much rain, kill them. In their larva state these insects are open to the attacks of both the parasitical ichneumons and acari, the larva of which feed upon the young grubs. Toon (Cedrela toona) and sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo) are both attacked by a larger and more powerful Cerambyx than that found on the Vatiea robusta.
Rottlera tinctoria, the rewneah of Northern India, is constantly attacked by another Cerambyx, the larva of which is over four inches in length, and as thick as a man's thumb.
Tho larva of the capricorn beetles are called, in Hindi, Mukora. There are four kinds of Mukora recognised in Northern India, and they attack the Vatica robusta and the pine.
A minute species of the Cerambyx attacks the living bark of the Acacia catechu, and their presence may always be detected by the gummy exudation which their presence within the tree occasions. Cerambyx vatioa, or sal-grub, burrows
in the wood of that tree, and is sought for by the woodpeckers.
A small species of Leptura, in Northern India, attacks the harder woods. They have been found in the wood of the goug-creeper, a species of Robinia.
Species of Saperda also occur in tho northern forests of India.
Monochamus soongna, Thompson, is one of the Cerambycidce. It is a magnificent beetle, and its larva is very destructive to the 13ontbax hepta phyllum (or scemul), also the Soongna or 31onoga pterygosperma, and the roongra or Erythrina suberosa. Its larva is very large, and armed with powerful mandibles.
Another 3lonochamits beetle enters the trunk of the Salix tetrasperma, and bores it in all directions.
A Monoeliamus attacks the Butea frondosa. Leptura has been found on the Robinia macro phylla, Vatica robusta, the bamboo, and species of Dalbergia.
Pupa of another Monochamus beetle were dis covered underneath the bark of the Butea fron doss, and in logs of the Odina wodier and I3ombax heptaphyllum. They were found in solid cocoons made of a substance resembling lime. The shell was fully one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, quite hard and firm.
Hemiptera are exemplified in the common house bug and all the aphides or plant lice.
Hemipterous insects do not undergo a complete metamorphosis. After being hatched from eggs laid by the parent insect, the larva and pupa remain much alike. Their fecundity is enormous. In the Kamaon forests a large and magnificent red bug, two inches long, has been observed sucking the stones of the Cordia myxa. By pierc ing the soft stems of young plants, they cause thousands to perish in a single day.
A green bug of Burma, one of the Tingida, is very injurious to fruit. They suck the juice of oranges through the skin. The paddy bug of Burma sucks the paddy before the kernel has be come hard. It is a species of Cimex, or one of the Scutellerida, and whole fields of rice are some times abandoned in consequence of the devasta tion it commits.