118 



PESTS OF RICE AND WHEAf. 



eight feet wide and three feet deep with the opening three feet high. 

 Two bamboos keep open the sides of the mouth and the bag can be 

 drawn tight and rapidly run over the rice, brushing through the upper 

 half of the plant. The winged and unwinged are caught if the bag is at 

 once twisted up at the close of each run and a very large area can be 

 rapidly swept. The method is useless without co-operation, as a whole 

 area must be swept clean or the bugs wander in again. 



When the flying bugs first come in, the mere dragging of a rope 

 through the crop drives them out again, and a little systematic worrying 

 of this kind sends them back to the jungle. A remedy for this pest used 

 in South India and Ceylon is to smear a paddy winnow with sticky 



fruit juice, fix it to a pole and wave it 

 in the fields. The insects stick to the 

 winnow if struck. 



A common hand net is more efficacious 

 and just as easily made, and in actual 

 j)ractice the bag is better still. This 

 method however appeals to cultivators and, 

 if vigorously carried out, does destroy and 

 drive away the pest. 



In Bengal the rice- fields are found to 

 contain numbers of very active blue 

 beetles, marked with six white spots, 

 which feed upon the rice bug. This is the 

 Six-spotted Tiger Beetle,^ a very valuable 

 predaceous l^eetle which gathers in bug -infested rice-fields and keeps the 

 bugs in check. Another check is a small parasite found in the eggs. 



FiCx. 134. 



The Six-spotted Tu/er Beetle 



that preys on the Rice-Buj. 



The Rice Stem Fly.2 



The first symptom of this pest is the withering of the upper half of the 

 plant, the main stalk bending over from a point some distance above the 

 ground. The upper part withers and the main stem dies. If such a 

 stalk is split up the middle, the maggot or pupa of the insect will be 

 found. 



Very little ia known of the occurrence of this insect in India, as it 

 has been reported very seldom. The maggots are foun<l in the shoots 

 of rice ; they feed on the sap and produce a deformity and weakening of 

 the stem. The stem eventually falls over at the weak point. The 

 maggot transforms to the pupa inside the stem, the pupa being a 



' 187. Cicimlela sexpunclata. L (Ciciadeliclae.) | * 14. (Muscitla3 acalyptratiE.) 



