2 THE RICE GRASSHOPPER 



Besides H. hanian, two other species of this genus 

 are met with in India, but these other two {H. concolor, 

 Walk, and H. citrinolivihatus, Brunn.) appear to be re- 

 stricted to the northern part of the country and both differ 

 from H. banian in having no spine on the anal eercus. 



The Rice Grasshopper has a very wide and general 

 distribution throughout India and has formed the subject 

 of a number of notes. The first note on it as a serious 

 pest of cultivated crops appeared in Indian Museum Notes, 

 Volume I, page 203, 1889 91, where it is recorded as hav- 

 ing been present at Raipur, C. P., in 1886 and 1889, at- 

 tacking paddy and millet in Kathiawar in 1889 and in 

 Guzerat. Each succeeding volume of Indian Museum 

 Notes^ has one or more references to this insect as a pest 

 on sugar-cane, paddy, jowari, bajri, etc., from almost all 

 parts of India, from Madras Presidency north to Bengal 

 and west to Kathiawar. 



An interesting account of observations, made by culti- 

 vators and landholders on this pest, appears in Indian 

 Museum Notes, Volume V, page -30, 1903. The report, 

 compiled by the Revenue Department of Kerowlee State, 

 among a number of inaccuracies, notes quite correctly the 

 growth and moulting of the young insect and the weak 

 powers of flight of the adult. Lefroy,"^ in his " Important 

 Insects Injurious to Indian Agriculture," gives, as distri- 

 bution, Bengal, United Provinces, Central Provinces, My- 

 sore, Hyderabad, Bombay, Madras Presidency and Burma, 

 and, as food plants, grasses, rice, cane and small millets. 

 Lefroy also gives short notes on this pest in his " Indian 

 Insect Pests"^ and his " Indian Insect Life,"* while he 

 also refers to it in his memoir on the Bombay Locust.^ 

 In all four of these publications, he figures the insect ; in 

 " Indian Insect Life," he gives a not very satisfactory 

 coloured plate showing egg-mass, and young and adult 

 grasshoppers. 



Shortly after the organisation of this office in 1908, 

 reports of damage done by the Rice Grasshopper were 



> Indian Museum Notes, Vol. I, p. 203, Vol. II, p. 30, Vol. Ill, p. 29, Vol. IV, p. 29, 

 Vol. V, pp. 20 and 49, 1889-1903. 



2 Lefroy, Important Insects Injurious to Indian Agriculture, Mem. Department of 

 Agriculture in India, Entomological Series, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 120, figures 3 and 4. 



^ Lefroy, Indian Insect Pests, p. 120. 



* Lefroy, Indian Insect Life, p. 87, PI. VII and Fig. 27, 1909. 



■^ Lefroy, The Bombay Locust, Mem. Department of Agriculture in India, Entomo- 

 logical series. Vol. I, No. 1, p. 53, 



