An Account of a New Moth Borer of Sugar Cane (Family 
Tineidae) ; together with Further Notes on the Pyralid 
Moth Borer of Cane (Polyocha sp.). 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
DurRtnG 1919, while studying the economy of our Noctuid Moth-Borer of 
cane (Phragmatiphila truncata Walk.) quite a number of young ratoons 
were observed by the writer to be infested by larve of a lepidopteron 
not hitherto recorded as being injurious to sugar-cane. 
Although the smallest of our three moth-borers, this new species 
happens to be of decided economic interest, so has been rather fully 
illustrated and described in the present Bulletin. 
Unfortunately, the genus to which it belongs has not yet been deter- 
mined, as the insect proved to be new to our finest named collections of 
Australian lepidoptera. 
Many specimens of our second moth-borer (Polyocha sp.) were at 
‘the same time found associated with it, thus affording an opportunity 
for noting, as far as possible, the range of occurrence and precise 
economic position of this destructive Pyralid moth, and illustrating its 
life-history, the only previous record of which was published in Bulletin 
No. 3 of this Office.* 
The writer has avoided exhaustive technical descriptions of life- 
cycle stages, wishing merely to record and describe these moth-borers 
in a manner that, together with the illustrations given, will enable 
readers to identify them without difficulty. 
Quite possibly much of the damage to sugar-cane attributed as a 
matter of course to the action of root-eating beetle grubs may, in reality, 
_be the work of insects thought to be of minor importance, the presence 
of which has in the past been altogether ignored. 
* Queensland Bureau Sugar Experiment Stations, Div. Ent. Bull. No. 3, p. 10, 1916. 
