Si E. P. Stubbing — Economic Bniomolojy. [Apft. 



duction will be of great value. It should be pointed out, however, and 

 the point is an important one, that such weapons should only be made use 

 of by those thoroughly conversant with them and that the importation 

 of such i nsccts into localities should not be attempted until it has been 

 ascertained that there are no local beetles already performing this work. 

 A large sum was expended by Southern India planters in importing a 

 ladybird beetle from Australia to clear off the coffee scale. No result 

 happened, as the business was not in the hands of an expert who would 

 have conducted things properly, and the money was wasted. Attempts of 

 this nature made by those who do not understand what is required to be 

 done nor how to do it only bring such work into disrepute. 



We now come to a further consideration of the remedies applicable 

 by the agency of man and here we meet a subject about which little is 

 at present known in India. This being so it would be a useless waste 

 of time going into a long dissertation upon the various kinds of spray- 

 ing mixtures (already alluded to shortly above) and special spraying 

 machines, the various appliances for using gases to kill scale insects, 

 and other up-to-date remedial measures chiefly introduced by Americans 

 and largely in use in that country. Conditions are altogether different 

 in India, the two chief difficulties against work of this nature being the 

 great areas which have to be dealt with, and the ignorance, conserva- 

 tism, and religious prejudices of the ryot. 



But while we are not in a position at present to advise the apjDlica- 

 tion in India of these numerous and useful remedies, which are doing 

 so large an amount of good in other countries, we may consider for a 

 moment with profit the lines upon which we should advance. 



Although a general use of sprays aud spraying machines cannot be 

 as yet advocated, it is not for a moment meant that in certain cases such 

 will not be useful. Their practical utility and possibility must first, 

 however, be experimented with and demonstrated by the specialist before 

 they are introduced for general use to the ryot. For instance, to give 

 one illustration. There is a beetle commonly known as the rice hispa 

 {Hispa senescens) which commits, at times, great harm in the rice fields by 

 feeding upon the leaves and reducing them to mere yellow bundles 

 of the harder fibres of the leaf. Both the grub and beetle feed in this 

 way upon the leaf. Now this attack is started by the beetle laying its 

 eggs upon the leaves of the young rice seedlings whilst they are still in 

 the small nurseries in which the young plants are reared before being put 

 out into the fields. When the seedlings are transplanted out into the 

 rice fields the beetle accompanies them either as a grub or pupa on 

 the leaves and is thus spread widely all over the country. It goes 

 through several generations subsequently upon the rice plants and at 



