^09 

 CALOGRAMMA FESTIVA, Donovan,— 



a Caterpillar destructive to Crinum asiaticum. 



In Singapore, the caterpillars of Calogramma festiva (a moth), 

 destroy the foliage of Crinum asiaticum completely. They live social- 

 ly, devouring all the green parts of the plant, filling the angles be- 

 tween the leaves and elsewhere with their dejecta, where a mass of 

 putridity arises, among which they may pupate. The putridity is due 

 to the wet dejecta harbouring, in the climate of Singapore, fungi 

 which attack and rot the leaf tissues below, in such a way as to cut off 

 the upper part of the leaf from the bulb ; and then the whole blade 

 dies. 



The eggs are laid in patches on the plant, covered with a buff felt 

 from the mother moth's body. They are prettily ribbed to the apex. 

 The caterpillars on hatching have a transparent skin with small 

 black bristles arising trom swollen bases ; and after eating green tissue 

 they look green. They feed by eating the surface of the plant, but seem 

 at a great disadvantage if placed on an old leaf. When three days 

 old, a transverse saddle mark appears behind the head and another 

 on the back before the prolegs, while three faint longitudinal milky 

 white lines become apparent. A day later, dark plum-coloured pigment 

 appears elsewhere in the skin, and also fine milky white lines become 

 apparent between the other lines ; when five days old they are already 

 half an inch long, and yellow pigment begins to appear in the dorsal 

 line. 



The caterpillars grow to a length of iH inches. They appear 

 when full grown to have no hair at all, but in reality have the same 

 kind of scattered small bristles which are present on emergence 

 from the egg. They may be described then as follows: — The 

 skin is black with a narrow median orange brown line down 

 the back, and a nearly even white line down each side half 

 way between the middle of the back and the spiracles. Irre- 

 gular fine white lines ramify rather sparingly on either side of 

 the straight white line, and every white line is interrupted (but not 

 the orange line) in the segment between the legs and the pro- 

 legs, and less definitely on the last segment. Underneath the cater- 

 pillars are of a rich brown, and the head is of the same colour. 



At maturity the caterpillar has a way when disturbed of raising 

 the fore part of its body and of moving it by jerks. 



The life cycle has been observed to occupy seventy five days, so 

 that four broods occur easily within one year. * 



The moth, which was identified by Dr. R. tianitsch, is figured 

 in Moore's Lepidoptera of Ceylon, iii, plate 140, fig. 6, and described on 

 page 21 of the text. 



I. H. BURKILL. 



