Mr. Ramakrishra 
Ayyar. 
Mr. Fletcher. 
Mr. Ratiram. 
176 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 
a success in the locality as it was always very badly attacked by Lep- 
tocorisa. However, he put down eight acres under aus paddy and the 
plants grew well but, as the cultivators had predicted, when the crop came 
into ear and milk was forming in the grains, swarms of Leptocorisa came 
and attacked the whole crop. He tried his utmost to save it, and kept 
fires burning the whole night at several places in the midst of the crop, 
and produced smoke in portable vessels which were carried through the 
crop and the smoke fanned over the ears. He observed large numbers of 
bugs to be attracted to the fires and burnt. He used about 44 gallons 
of kerosine oil and several cartloads of cowdung cakes ; but all to no 
purpose. All the grains were sucked out and he got only the straw, which 
however the cattle would not eat on account of its buggy smell. He had 
to throw the straw into the manure pit. 
Leptocorisa is a very bad pest on the West Coast of Madras. On the 
Farm at Coimbatore hand-nets have been found very useful. In the 
interior districts, In some places, a long bamboo with a mat curved in 
the form of a ngst is used by the ryots ; this is a sort of a crude hand-net. 
ee 
Nephotettix bipunctatus was meluded in “ South Indian Insects”, 
p- 497, fig. 386, as a probable pest of paddy on account of the enormous 
numbers in which it sometimes appears in rice areas. Since that was 
written, it has appeared as a pest in the Central Provinces and we have 
heard a good deal about it in the last two years. Mr. Misra visited the 
attacked areas and wrote a note which has been published. We 
endeavoured to breed this species at Pusa in 1915 without success but 
were able to rear it last year. Perhaps Mr. Ratiram will tell us about 
the outbreak in the Central Provinces. 
Nephotettix bipunctatus is a serious pest of paddy in the Central Pro- 
vinees. It has come into prominence only since 1913, It occurs through- 
out the year. Adults are found on the fresh shoots given out by the 
stubble after harvest. In summer they are found on the grasses round 
about the tanks. Twelve varieties of grasses have been observed to 
serve as foodplants for this insect. 
In order to control it,in the beginning hand-nets and hght traps were 
made in large numbers and distributed to the cultivators through the 
tahsildars ; but it was found that the hand-nets were too small for the 
purpose, and the lamps became smoky and became dark after only about 
half an hour of having been lighted. So both these measures were 
discarded, and large bags replaced the hand-nets. When a rope or 
bag-net is used, the bugs fall into the water, but all of them do not die— 
they get on to the plants again. In order to find out the quantity of 
kerosine which would require to be present in the water to ensure the 
