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78 LIFE-HISTORIES OF GELECHIAD 
Mandalay. In Madras it is an important pest of groundnut and is well-known 
under the name of surul puch. 
The whole life-cycle is passed on the foodplant, the egg being laid on the 
leaves or stems, the larva at first mining into the leaves and later on tying 
them together, and pupating in the larval shelter so formed. 
The egg is described by Green as “ pale green, irregularly elongate-oval, 
surface coarsely pitted in irregular longitudinal series, under the microscope 
remarkably similar both in form and sculpture to seed of Arachis.” It has 
also been recorded by T. V. Ramakrishna Ayyar and Y. Ramachandra Rao as 
‘about 0°35 mm. in length, longer than broad, somewhat flattened, with the 
proximal face resting flatly on the leaf and the distal one convex. Its external 
surface is ornamented with a system of ridges forming a kind of network, 
while its inner face, by which it is attached, is, except for a few obsolete ridges, 
more or less even. In colour it is creamy yellow when freshly laid ; it retains 
this tinge to a greater or less extent until the third day, when a black dot (the 
head of the larva) makes its appearance, and as it approaches the time of 
hatching it gradually turns dark.” 
The egg may be laid on any part of the upper portion of the foodplant ; 
when laid on a leaf, it is usually placed on the lower surface ; as a rule the egg 
is laid in some slight depression on the plant. 
The eggs are laid singly by night, the maximum number laid by one 
female being noted as 97, and hatch after three days. 
The newly-hatched larva is slightly over 0°5 mm. long, dull grey, flattened 
anteriorly, slender posteriorly ; head black ; prothoracic shield light brown. 
It wanders about for a short time and then mines into a leaf, the mine after a 
day or two showing up as a whitish-brown streak ; the terior of the mine 
is lined with a layer of silk. After mining for about eight days, the larva bites 
its way out of the mine and webs together two or more leaflets and lives under 
shelter, forming a small oval silk-lined chamber about 8 mm. long in which 
the larva lives and ultimately pupates. After another three or four days it 
is full-grown and is then about 5°5 to 6 mm. long, rather stout, faint dirty 
green ; head, prothoracic and anal shields dark brown ; each segment with 
tubercles from which arise pale brown sete ; legs dark brown ; prolegs greenish. 
Male larvee show, between the fourth and fifth abdominal segments, a pair of 
asymmetrically-situated dark violet testes, which are clearly visible through 
the skin. Pupation takes place in a closely-woven torpedo-shaped cocoon, 
about 9 mm. long, and usually constructed in the larval chamber to whose 
sides it is rather loosely attached. The pupa is about 4°5 mm. long, rather stout, 
yellowish or reddish brown; cephalic and thoracic regions thickly covered 
