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TWO NOTORIOUS INSECT PESTS. 



By R. S. Hole, I.F.S., F.C.H., F.L.S., F.E.S., 



Officiating Deputy Conservator of Forests, 

 With Plates A to E. 



(Read before the Bombay Natural History Society 

 on 16th June 1904.) 



1. So far as our knowledge at present extends, the two most 

 dangerous insect enemies of the famous teak tree, Tectona grandis, in 

 India and Burma are the two moths known, respectively, as Pyrausta 

 machceralis (^syn. Paliga damaste salts) and Hyblcea puera. 



2. My attention was first attracted to the great damage wrought 

 by these insects in the teak forests of the Central Provinces in 1898, 

 and since then I have endeavoured to collect as much information as 

 possible about them and their way of life. The following notes have 

 been compiled, from observations made in the Damoh and Jubbul- 

 pore districts of the Central Provinces during the period 1898 — 1902. 

 Official woi'k and the necessity of being constantly in camp have 

 made it impossible for me either to devote as much time as I should 

 have liked to these insects and their attacks, or to breed and keep 

 under continual observation a sufficient number of specimens of each 

 species, which will, I trust, be accepted as to some extent explain- 

 ing the incompleteness of the notes and the imperfections of the 

 illustrations which accompany them. I venture, however, to put 

 them forward as they are, seeing that my recent transfer from the 

 teak region will make it impossible for me to correct or supplement 

 them for some time to come. 



3. Both these insects have a wide distribution, being found wherever 

 teak forests occur in India and Burma. The climatic conditions 

 under which the insects live in different localities, therefore, vary con- 

 siderably, and the present notes, referring as they do to a very small 

 area, require comparison with the results of observations made in other 

 localities, before we can hope to compile a complete life-history of these 

 pests which will apply to all teak forests in India and Burma. This 

 note will, I hope, in a small way, aid the preparation of an account of 

 these pests which, when complete, should make it possible to adopt some 

 plan of action by means of which the teak may be, to some extent at all 

 events, protected from them. 



