LEPIDOPTEKA. 453 



Distribution. — Tea districts. 



Lifehistory. — The pale-yellow eggs are laid in compart masses 

 nil the upper-side of mature leaves. Th< young caterpillars arr at 

 first more or less gregarious but separate after the first moult. 

 When full-grown the caterpillar is about 20 mm. long, pale green 

 in colour with a shining black head and prothoracic plate. It spins 

 ther two or more leaves to form a shelter, often enclosing a 

 young shoot, nibbling the leaves and buds here and there and 

 destroying far more than it eats. The reddish-brown pupa is found 

 in the larval shelter. 



Foodplants. Tea. Coffee, Acacias, Albizzias, Eucalyptus, etc. 

 (Green). 



Status. The "Flush Worm" does considerable damage- in all 

 Tea districts of Southern India. 



Control. — (i) Collection and destruction of egg-masses. 



(2) Collection and destruction of all twisted leaves containing 

 caterpillars and pupae. 



(3) The female moths have been found to be attracted by 

 suspending withered Grevillea branches between the rows of tea- 

 bushes. The branches are slung from sticks about 40 feet apart so 

 that the bottom of the branch is level with the tops of the tea- 

 bushes. The dry brandies are visited daily and shaken into a sack 

 which is then banged on the ground to kill the moths. 



Remarks. II- coflearia has not been definitely recorded from 

 Southern India and is included here on the authority of Mr. Anstead. 

 Particulars of lifehistory, foodplants and control are based on 

 work in Ceylon. 



ARBELID/E. 

 " ARBELA " TETRAONIS. Moore. 



Arbela tetraonis, Moore. P.Z.S. (1879), 411, t. 34, f. 3; Hmpsn., 



Faun. Ind. Moths, I. 3 1 5 ; Let'roy. bid. Ins. Life, p. 403. t. 45 : V. S. 

 Iyer, Ind. Forest Bull. Xo. 11. pp. 3 7, t. 1-2. 



Plate xld. 



Distribution. Nellore, North and South Arcot. Probably 

 throughout the Plains of Southern India. 



Lifehistory. — The e>;gs are probably laid singly in 

 bark. The larva on hatching bores a gallery into the stem or a 

 branch and from this it emerges to feed on the bark under cover ot 

 a long gallery ot silk overlaid with small fragments of wood. Pupa 

 red-brown provided with rings of hooks on the segments, in the 

 larval gallery in the stem. The life-cycle is probably: eg^s laid 

 June-July, larvae feci July-April, pupae May-June, moths June-July. 



