iUC ULTURA U ENTOMOLOGY. 2<U 



,..--, and thus causing them to dry up and wither. My chief object 

 in calling your attention to it to-night is in order to notice its connec- 

 tion with the rust mite which attacks oranges in Florida, and which 

 seems from the reports of United States entomologists to have been 

 extent successfully kept under by spraying the bushes with 

 washes made of soapy water in which has been mixed some finely 

 powdered sulphur. I suggested this treatment for red spider in a 

 paper published some years ago by the Agricultural Society. Last 

 year I heard of one tea garden in Darjiling where they were talking 

 of importing a quantity of sulphur for the purpose, but I do not know 

 to what extent the experiment was successful, though the great injury 

 done to the tea industry by the pest would seem to make the matter 

 one of some importance. 



I will now show you a few slides of insects which have proved 

 injurious, but on which I will not detain you long. The first 

 illustrates the toon bcrer, Magiria robusta, which has been seriously 

 injuring a" large number of toon trees in Dehra Dun — the caterpillar 

 year after year tunneling into and destroying the leading shoots 

 of the young toon trees so that the trees become a mass of stunted 

 branches of but little value for timber purposes. The insect has 

 been previously reported as injurious in Ceylon, but little is known 

 about it, beyond the fact that in Ceylon, moths were obtained in October 

 from larvae which were full fed in the end of September. The second 

 slide shows the rice sapper {Gandhi makhi), which has been again 

 destructive to paddy in Bengal (Champaran). It destroys the paddy 

 grain when still immature, by sticking its proboscis into the unripe 

 ear and sucking up the milk -like juice of the rice. It occurs all 

 over India on rice, and sometimes destroys a large proportion of the 

 crops, especially when the rains set in early. But little is known of 

 its life-history, and with regard to remedies, though smoking the 

 crop by burning vegetable refuse to windward has been recommended 

 by some people, there is nothing to show that it is of any real use. 



The third slide shows the rice Rispa, which is another very injurious 

 insect, which has again been reported from several parts of Bengal 

 and Burma. It eats away the green parenchymatous tissue of the 

 young rice leaves, and does a great deal of damage. Little has actually 

 been observed of the habits of the insect ; but from its zoological 



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