PJiOCEEDfi\GS BALUCHISTAN NAT. HIST. SOC\ 77a 



Division Cicadatraria, Genus Sena (Distant) and belongs to the Species named 

 Sena quwmlla (Pullas). 



Au interesting description of both the Family and Species will be found 

 given at pages 55 to 57 and 135 to 136 respectively of the Fauna of British 

 India, Rhynchota, Vol. III. I have had my home in Quetta for the past 19 

 year.-: but this is the first time I have seen the Cicada in such swarms. It 

 appears, however, from Major Anscomb and other older residents who have 

 been more continuously in the station than I have been that similar swarms 

 have been known to visit the place at intervals of about G years, the last 

 occasion being in 1903 when I was out of the station. 



The first specimen seen by me this year was brought by my son on the 

 11th inst. The same day the Hon'ble Colonel Archer captured some and 

 sent them over to the Museum. A few days later I secured a number but of 

 a smaller size near Baleli. On the 18th I went down to the Lora and found 

 tlie willow trees there covered with them, while under the trees it looked as if 

 it were raining, I at first thought this was due to these insects bleeding the 

 trees, but on approaching nearer I found that the insects themselves were 

 giving out a fluid discharge. 



The same evening I noticed numerous empty pupae skins slit open down the 

 back hanging from the low shrubs which there covered the ground, and which 

 is called locally Busandak (Brahui), Ghurezha (Pastu) and botanically Soplwra 

 aioitecuroides (Linn), while the ground itself was perforated with numerous 

 small holes, each about half an inch in diameter. Seeing these empty pupse skins 

 in such numbers, I concluded that they had been cast off by the flying insect 

 under consideration. Not having time that evening to dig up any of the holes, 

 I was going away when I noticed a young Echis carinata in one of them. This 

 I soon got out with the help of a little water. 



This morning I again visited the place and selecting a spot where the holes 

 were very numerous, — 20 in a space 18 inches square — I set a man to dig up 

 the ground, carefully examining each hole separately. 



The holes, I would add, were open to the sky and went down more or less 

 vertically to a depth varying from 11 inches to 2 feet, widening slightly at the 

 bottom for about 1^ or 2 inches to a diameter of f inch. 



Each hole was separate, none meeting anywhere, even though some of them 

 were less than an inch apart. 



At the bottom of about some G or 7 holes, I found some beetle-shaped pupse 

 which I now place before the meeting. 



Of these, an injured specimen appears to have been on the eve of splitting 

 open when dug up. 



These pupiE, it will be observed, are just able to crawl, each limb being 

 enclosed in a separate sheet. 



Though the holes had been bored in ground covered with the Busandak 

 shrub, very few of them came into contact with any roots and seemed intended 

 merely to hold the insect in its pupa) stage. 



