I. RHYNCHOTA FROM BARKUDA ISLAND. 



By C. A. Paiva, Assistant, Zoological Survey of India. 



Introductory Note. 



I have already described Barkuda I. in these " Records."^ Here 

 it will be siifl&cient to repeat that it is a rocky or rather stony island 

 about one mile long by three-quarters of a mile broad, and lies, about a 

 mile offshore, in the Chilka Lake some five miles from the southern end. 

 It is thus situated in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Madras 

 Presidency, in the Ganjam District. 



The peculiar features that have influenced its Rhynchotal fauna may 

 be considered a little more fully. The most important of these is the 

 sclerophytic nature of the vegetation. The island is rather densely 

 wooded, but all the trees and bushes have hard glossy foliage, and ordinary 

 succulent vegetation is practically confined to a few^ creepers and one or 

 two weeds that have established themselves at spots where the jungle 

 has been felled. With these facts is correlated a great scarcity of the 

 smaller Homoptera such as abound in grass and among soft herbage. 

 Indeed, all those species of either Homoptera or Heteroptera that live 

 by sucking leaves or stems of plants are very scarce, the few that occur 

 being found mainly on introduced Leguminosae. The phytophagous 

 species of the island live in most instances by sucking seeds or berries, 

 but the most conspicuous form {Empysurus johni) sucks the fruit and 

 young leaves of a fig, and the most abundant {Petalocnemis ohscura) the 

 stems of the Poison Apple Datura stramonium, Linn., — both plants that 

 are not as a rule attractive to insects. Other groups of insects, with the 

 exception of certain families of beetles, notably the Tenebrionidae and 

 Cicindelidae, are just as poorly represented on the island as the Rhyn- 

 chota. A factor that may have been of importance in the scarcity of 

 species is the strong breeze that blows across the island almost daily. 

 Insectivorous birds and lizards are, however, few. 



There is a small pond in the middle of the island. It is dug in laterite 

 rock and the water has a depth of about five or six feet in the middle, 

 but naturally varies with the rainfall. The pool is roughly circular 

 and about 12 yards in diameter. The bottom is covered with black 

 mud. There are no true water-plants, but a fairly dense growth of sedges 

 springs up round the margin in wet weather. The water is very slightly 

 brackish, opaque and muddy. In this pond certain aquatic Rhynchota 

 abound. The commonest are Anisops sardea and Plea palescens ; other 

 species are much less so. The Hydrometridae are as a rule scarce, 

 but Gerris tristan, though not always present, sometimes appears in 

 considerable numbers. Apart from Rhynchota and water-beetles, of 

 which a certain number of species are abundant, the fauna of 

 the pond is by no means rich. The only vertebrate is the frog Rana 



iRec. hid. Mus. XIII, p. 171 (1917] 



