142 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ENTOMOLOGICAL MEBTING 
With regard to the question of Diatraa we are still rather in the dark 
as to the number of species which occur in India and their identity. 
Up to a few years ago any borer, found in cane, maize, juar and so on, 
was lumped under the name “ Moth Borer ” and was supposed to be 
Chilo simplex. On going over the Pusa Collection it struck me that the 
rather inadequate material lumped together as Chilo simplex really com- 
prised more than one species, the specimens bred from cane being onthe 
whole distinct from those reared from maize and guar. The difference 
became of practical importance in 1912 at Coimbatore whenthe new 
Sugarcane Station was started there because the surrounding country 
side was full of fields of cholam (juar) heavily infested with borers and, 
if this borer in cholam were the same as that attacking cane, the growth 
of cane on the Sugarcane Station would probably have been seriously 
affected. I therefore went into the question again with all the material 
available and came to the conclusion that, generally speaking, the borers 
in cane and in cholam were distinct. This is a conclusion which [ have not 
seen occasion to modify so far, but at present I can only put it forward 
as a preliminary conclusion. We want to see a good deal more material 
from all parts of India and I shall be glad if any of you will assist by 
sending us in long series of specimens in good condition or by sending 
us parcels of cane, maize or juar affected by borers so that we can breed 
them out for ourselves. It is only by examination of long series in good 
condition that we shall be in a position to see what species really occur 
in different localities, by what points they may be separated, and what 
are the foodplants of each. 
So far as I can say at present—it is, I repeat, only a preliminary 
opinion based on a comparatively small amount of material—we seem to 
have in India at least two, possibly three, species of Diatr@a. One of these 
is perhaps Diatrea venosata, Wk. (striatalis, Snell), which is well-known 
as a cane-pest in Java; it is probably distributed widely in the Plains 
of India and we have examples of this from Pusa, Ramnad, Jalalpur, 
Surat and Cawnpur. The second species is probably Diatrea suppres- 
salis, Wik. (auricilia, Ddgn.), which also seems to be widely distributed 
in the Plains of India, although we have no records from the Bombay 
side ; this is probably the species figured in “ South Indian Insects,” 
fig. 298, as Diatrea sp. We have also a few specimens, reared from 
sugarcane at Pabna, of a Diatrwa which may be an extreme form of the 
last species, or may be distinct. All of these forms of Diatrea appear 
to be distinct from Chilo, in the imaginal state, in structural details of 
neuration, but the neuration in Chilo appears on the other hand to be 
variable and a good deal of work will have to be done on the distinctions 
between Diatrea and Chilo, and between the various species concerned 
