iv PREFACE. 



re at Trichinopoly. It remained for the twentieth 

 century to place the study of entomology on broader and 

 mure si ientific lines by the appointment of official Entomo- 

 ts firstly in Mysore and subsequently in .Madras. 



In Madras Entomology has been studied, especially from 

 the standpoint of Economic Agricultural Entomology, since 

 1906, when an Entomological Assistant was appointed to 

 work under Dr. Barber, then Government Botanist, and the 

 number ol Assistant- was subsequently increased to three. 

 at which it remained when I took over the newly-created 

 oi Government Entomologist in April 1 9 1 2. Under 

 ordinal}- circumstances the issue of a book on South Indian 

 Insects would have been deferred for some years pending a 

 more thorough investigation into the lifehistories of those 

 insects ol greater economic importance, but orders for my 

 transfer from Madras led me to overhaul the collections and 

 records formed before and during my tenure of office 

 primarily with the idea of leaving them in order for my 

 successor. The information gathered together proved (un- 

 expectedly) so large as to appear to merit publication, not 

 as a definitive text-book, but as a basis for further work. 

 Hinc Me liber! 



In the "Indian Crow. His Book," we are told that 

 Prefaces arc cither apologetic or defiant. Well, of course — 



"There an- some might In- found entertaining .1 notion 

 That such an entire ami exclusive devotion 



To that part of Si 'logy 



Really demanded some sort of apol 

 although even such folk might change their views if trans- 

 port* d to India and exposed to the ordinary insect-plagues of 

 everyday life. And no apology is needed for the study of 



in a country in which thousands arc swept away every 

 yeai by insect-borne diseases and in which seven-tenths of 

 the population are entirely dependent upon their crops whose 

 produce is always lessened ami sometimes wholly destroyed 

 In the ravages of insects. Any apology, therefore, shall not 



'Hied with the subject-matter of this book except as 



