236 



SUCKING INSECTS. 



bug" is a somewhat serious occasional pest.^ Another small dusky 



bug ^ is reported as a pest ; this 

 is closely allied to the notori- 

 ous chinch bug- of the United 

 States, but there is no accurate 

 record of its being a serious pest 

 in India (fig. 284). A peculiar 

 form of injury is caused by bugs 

 which gather on the threshing 

 floor and suck out the seeds of 

 sesamum and other oil crops. 

 The principal of these bugs is a 

 small brownish insect/ common 

 in the plains ; it also attacks 

 the seed on the growing plant 

 and may be reckoned a casual 

 pest to oil seeds in general 

 (fig. 285). 



Other species have been re- 

 corded as injuring crops, but 



cannot probably rank as pests in the broadest sense of the word. 



The method of capturing the Red Cotton Bug (page 106) is applicable 



to many other bugs, which are easily collected 



by hand in the crops. If this is done in good 



time no harm results, and it is only rarely, 



when favourable conditions occur and nothing 



is done to check them, that bugs become des- 

 tructively numerous. The betel vine grower 



catches liis pest by hand, crushing it in a 



folded leaf of the plant. In the case of the 



Painted Bug and similar insects, the eggs 



are very easily collected and destroyed, and 



the pest would be most simply checked in 



this manner if the cultivator was familiar 



with them. 



In special cases it may be possible to use 



contact poisons, as when the heads of cholam 



are dipped or wetted in kerosene emulsion to 



Fig. 282. 

 The Cholam Bug. {Magnified.) 



Fig. 283. ^ 

 Another Grain- Sucking Bug. 

 [Magnified.) {From Distant.) 



' 222. Calocoris anguntatus. Leth. (Capsidse.) 

 2 Blissus gibbus. F. (Lygajidie.) 

 ' ApJianus sordidus. F. (Lygseidse.) 



