AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1914-15. 63 



submerge the plants temporarily, (5) spraying with contact 

 insecticides, and (6) putting up lantern traps in the 

 affected fields. Of these, it was found that the last was 

 the most efficacious and that most readily adopted by the 

 cultivators. 



A leaflet on this pest in English and Hindi was written 

 and issued by the Department of Agriculture, Central 

 Provinces, and widely circulated amongst the cultivators of 

 the affected districts. It has also been translated into 

 Uriya and issued by the District Board in Balasore, where 

 an outbreak of Nephotettioc also occurred. A trained 

 Fieldman was lent to the Central Provinces to carry on 

 continuous observations of the pest and to advise adoption 

 of remedial measures in the Raipur and Bilaspur districts 

 which were severely infested last year. 



9. Life-histories. In the insectary were reared some 

 two hundred insects which had not been reared previously. 

 Considerable attention has been paid to various insects 

 (mostly Coleoptera) found at and just below soil-level and 

 about sixty different beetles have been reared and their 

 breeding-places, earlier stages, food and habits noted. 

 Many of these beetles are predaceous and are therefore 

 beneficial by destroying plant-feeding crop-pests; amongst 

 such may be noted an unidentified Carabid predaceous on 

 a Cydnid bug, a species of Chlcenius predaceous both in 

 the larval and adult stage on caterpillars of Utetheisa 

 pulchella, and several Elaterid beetles. Of these last a 

 single grub of A grypnus sp. ate more than 200 Scarabceid 

 grubs in the course of about three months, and another 

 Elaterid larva was found to exercise a considerable check 

 on Tenebrionid grubs feeding at the roots of gram and 

 other crops. 



A point, which has been observed with regard to some 

 common insects (Laspeyresia, Chilo, Chloridea) reared for 

 observation of exact cycles of their life-history, is that out 

 of the same batch of larvae, feeding and commencing to 

 hibernate at the same time, some hibernate and emerge as 

 adults whilst others hibernate during the cold weather, 



