500 



grubs. Quantities of arsenic, sodium sulphite, hypo- sulphite, and 

 magnesium sulphate were all tried without much success. Preventive 

 measures are therefore advocated. WTien a tree has of necessity been 

 probed and the grubs cleared out of the tunnels, every exposed wound 

 must be covered up. For this purpose, filling in with lime mortar has 

 been found more effectual than tarring the surfaces, particularly when 

 a preliminary spraying with paraffin emulsion has been made. These 

 mutilated stems are always a source of danger and the utmost care 

 should be taken that no stems remain in which the weevils may be 

 present in the pupal stage. 



Henry (G. M.). The Paddy Cutworm, Sjjodopiera mauritia, Boisd. — 

 TrojJ. Agric, Peradeniya, xlix, no. 1, July 1917. pp. 32-33, 1 fig.. 



The earliest outbreaks of Spodoptera mauritia in Ceylon were' 

 recorded in 1904-1906 ; since then the pest has been practically 

 quiescent until the present time, when it seems to have increased 

 suddenly, causing a serious and widespread outbreak. This cutworm 

 has the marching habit, the caterpillars migrating in swarms over the 

 ground in search of fresh fields, which they entirely devastate. The 

 best remedy therefore is to dig trenches round the fields adjacent to 

 the outbreak, in which the migratory caterpillars collect in hordes 

 and can be easily killed. The infested fields should be flooded and the 

 caterpillars then disturbed by dragging a rope, stretched between two 

 men, over the rice ; this causes the insects to fall off the plants into 

 the water where they are drowned. During slight infestations in 1914 

 and 1915, the pest was controlled by spraying the crop with lead 

 chromate. 



Under normal conditions the insects occur in small numbers in 

 neglected grass-lands ; all wild grasses adjacent to rice-fields should 

 therefore be carefully looked after to prevent this cutworm from 

 increasing unduly. 



As the moth lays its eggs in batches on grass- blades and as the 

 caterpillar hides by day and pupates underground, infested grass-lands 

 should be ploughed in order to bury the eggs and expose the caterpillars 

 and pupae to predaceous birds before rice-planting begins. As the 

 caterpillars apparently eat only young rice, the damage might be 

 j)revented by growing the seedlings in nurseries protected by ditches 

 full of water and transplanting as soon as the plants are big enough 

 to resist attack. 



Newstead (R.). Observations on Scale-Insects (Coccidae)-iv. — Bull. 

 Entom. Research, London, viii, no. 1, August 1917, pp. 1-34, 



2 figs. 



The following new species are described : — Llaveia abraJiami, from 

 British Guiana, where it inhabits indentations in the bark of a 

 rubber-producing tree, Sapium jenmani, and is attended by ants 

 which construct coverings over it ; L. primitiva var. pimentae, 

 from Jamaica on Pimenta officinalis, attended by the so-called 

 stinking-ant, Cremastog aster sp. ; Aspidoproctus neavei, sp. n., from 

 Nyasaland ; A. verrucosus, sp. n., from Uganda, on a fig-tree; 

 Palaeococcus bicolor, sp. n., from the Gold Coast, on Thespesia sp. ;, 

 P. caudatus, sp. n., from Uganda, on crotons ; P. cajani, sp. n., from 



