JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



is ready to emerge, when the skin cracks down the back, and out of 

 the dried-up ckrysalid's case creeps a soft fluffy moth which crawls 

 out of the burrow and spreads its wings to dry in the air, as a 

 preliminary to taking flight and starting a family of its own. The 

 whole of the life of the insect, from the time it is laid as an egg by 

 its mother to the time when it lays eggs of its own, only occupies a 

 few weeks, so that several generations are gone through in the 

 course of the year. But it is only for a short time of the year 

 that the paddy fields are a suitable dwelling place for this insect. 

 For we know that throughout the whole of the rains the paddy 

 stands in water, so it would be quite impossible for the caterpillar 

 to burrow into the ground, and if it remained on the paddy plants 

 during the day time it would be almost certain to get eaten up 

 by the birds, which are very fond of it. It is only the autumn 

 generations of caterpillars that can feed on rice, and the spring and 

 summer generations must live on some other plant. If, therefore, 

 we could destroy the plants upon which the spring and summer 

 generations feed, we should get rid of the pest altogether, for 

 there would then be no moths to lay their eggs upon the rice 

 plants in the autumn. The first thing to do is, of course, to find out 

 upon what plants the caterpillar feeds. The only other upon 

 which the insect has yet been observed to feed is the oat plant, but 

 there is every probability that it feeds upon a number of grasses. Now 

 in Bengal, we know that during the greater part of the rains almost 

 the only grasses which are not submerged are those which grow upon 

 the bunds between the paddy fields, and there is thus very considerable 

 probability that if the bunds were kept clear of all rank grass during 

 the rains, there would be no moths to lay their eggs upon the rice 

 plants in the autumn. In fact, we shall see that, when practicable, it 

 is a good thing to keep the rice bunds as clear as possible all the year 

 round, for another very destructive paddy pest, the paddy borer, about 

 which I will tell you presently, is also propagated in the rank grasses 

 which spring up around the rice fields. With regard to other means 

 of dealing with the paddy cut-worm, a number of suggestions have 

 been made, but for the most part they are only applicable to crops 

 which are more elaborately cultivated than rice, and with which there- 

 fore more costly treatment is practicable. 



