PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 23 
Pecilocoris latus is a large Pentatomid bug which is apparently 
confined to North-East India. 
The damage it does in North-East India seems to be problematical. Mr. Audrews. 
Is it not an agent for damage to tea-seeds by a fungus ? Mr. Fletcher. 
Yes ; there is a fungus which gets into the tea-seeds through the Mr. Andrews. 
punctures made by the bugs, but this fungus is also found in seeds which 
have not been punctured. 
And as regards control ? Mr. Fletcher. 
Control is simple and consists only i hand-collection of the bugs and Mr. Andrews. 
killing them. 
We will go on to Helopeltis and Disphinctus. There has been con- Mr. Fletcher. 
siderable confusion with regard to the various species of Helopeltis 
found on tea, and their distinctions were dealt with by Dr. Mann in Vol. 
I of our Entomological Memoirs. Roughly speaking I believe that in 
North-East India the common “ mosquito-blight ” of tea is Helopeltis 
theivora, whereas in South India we get Helopeltis antoni and doubtless 
Disphinctus humeralis is often mixed up with this. It is possible that 
Helopeltis cinchone also occurs in Southern India, but we shall have to 
study a good deal of material in good condition before we can say much 
about its identity. I have not myself seen Helopeltis on tea in India, 
so I will ask Mr. Anstead and Mr. Andrews to tell us their experiences. 
In Southern India Helopeltis is worst in the monsoon. Spraying is Mr. Anstead. 
out of the question then, but hand-catching is of some use. It also 
flourishes on a kind of wild palm, and removal of these trees is useful. 
It also feeds on Cinchona. In the Wynaad one finds a bush infested 
here and there, but it never does any appreciable damage. 
Spraying on a large scale is impossible in North-East India. When Mr. Andrews. 
Helopeltis occurs in isolated patches, spraying with lime and sulphur 
combined with plucking of bushes outside and inside does some good. 
Many spray materials have been tried against Helopeltes, but none can be 
used successfully ona large scale, owing to the labour conditions, shortage 
of water, the fact that.Helopeltis is at its worst during the rainy season, 
when spray materials are rapidly washed off, etc. Also, none of the 
spray materials tried have been found to be really efficacious even 
under favourable conditions. The fact that the bushes are grown for 
the young leaves, which are the most tender parts of the plant, is a diffi- 
culty ; how much so might be gathered from the fact that the first stage 
larva can resist a formalin solution of twice the strength which would 
burn the young shoots badly. However, spraying with lime-sulphur 
solution has been found beneficial in some estates where only small patches 
of tea were affected, but a second spraying is invariably necessary eight 
days later to deal with individuals which were in the egg stage at the 
