TWO NOTORIOUS INSECT PFSTS. 685 



which tbesa notes refer the teak trees do not come into leaf until 

 June-July. This led me to think that the lame fed on some other 

 plant during April-May, but I was unable to prove this to be the case. 

 B. Hyblaza puera — 



19. Hampson gives Bignoniacece as the food-plant. During the 

 rains of 1901 in Jubbulpore the insect was not very numerous, and, 

 although I searched carefully, I could only find the larvae on the leaves 

 of Millingtonia hortensis, with the exception of two isolated individuals 

 seen on teak on August 15th. 



20. I made several attempts to make larvae bred on Millingtonia 

 leaves, eat teak leaves, but met with very little success. The larvae, 

 if able to escape, at once left the teak leaves to search for other food ; 

 if unable to escape and kept from other food they usually die. If 

 almost mature, the larvae, in a few cases, pupated, but very little, if any, 

 of the teak leaf was ever eaten. A fairly full-grown larva taken from 

 a Millingtonia tree on September 12th and placed on a teak leaf, ate a 

 little of the leaf and constructed a shelter by turning down the end of 

 the leaf in which it lived until September 15th, when it pupated inside 

 the shelter. Fig. XVI shows the shelter and the small portion of leaf 

 which was eaten. 



21. Another young larva taken from a Millingtonia tree on 

 September 19th and then fed on teak leaves lived for 11 days, 

 died on September 30th, just after a change cf skin. This larva con- 

 structed a shelter by cutting and turning over a flap on the edge of 

 the leaf. Fig. XV shows this shelter with the portion of leaf 

 eaten by the larva close to it. When fed on Millingtonia leaves, I found 

 that several larvae attained their full development and pupated in 10 days, 

 whereas this larva, fed on teak, although more than 11 days old, was 

 then scarcely half grown and, as the photograph shows, it had then only 

 just acquired the power of biting through the fine veins of the leaf. In 

 this case the larvae preferred Millingtonia leaves to those of teak, and 

 probably other plants belonging to Bignoniacece are preferred to teak 

 when they are available. It is clear that the larvae did not readily 

 adapt themselves to the teak diet and that many perished through their 

 inability to do so. It appears, therefore, that the development of the 

 larvae can be considerably checked by destroying the supply of their 

 favourite food, and this is, at the same time, an indication of the enormous 

 numbers in which the larvae must occur in years when they are able to 



