THE BROWN BUS 55 



THE BROWN BUG. 



Saissetia hemisph^ricum, (Tarq.) Fernald. 



Mrs. Fernald, Catalogue of the Coccidae of the World. Hatch 

 Experiment Station. Bull. No. 88, 1903. 



LECANIUM HEMISPHiERICUM, (TaRG). 



E. E. Green, Coccidae of Ceylon, 1896-1908, p. 232-33. Indian 

 Museum Notes, Vol. I, p. 113, 1889-91. 



H. M. Lefroy, The More Important Insects Injurious to Indian 

 Agriculture. Department of Agriculture in India, Vol. I, No. 2, 

 1907, p. 247. 



George Watt, The Pests and Blights of the'Tea Plant, 1888, p. 330. 



Lefroy, Insect Pests of Coffee. Department of Agriculture in 

 India. Bull. No. 2, 1903, p. 12. 



Unlike green bug, the brown bug on coffee has for 

 long been known in all parts of South India as a more or 

 less serious pest of coffee. It is of universal occurrence 

 in the tropics, where it thrives on a very large number of 

 plants both cultivated and uncultivated. In temperate 

 regions it has been recorded on several plants such as 

 palms and orchids grown in green houses. The earliest 

 record of its occurrence on coffee is from Ceylon where, 

 a^ccording to Nietner, it appears to have been in existence 

 from a very early period, but attracted attention only in 

 1845, when its rapid spread over several estates caused 

 considerable alarm to the planters. It continued to be 

 the cause of much anxiety until the fifties, when it began 

 to decline and lose its hold. Nietner wrote in 1872, " I 

 may add that now there is not nearly as much said about 

 the bug as fifteen or twenty years ago, and although we 

 shall never get free from it, it is to be hoped we shall 

 gradually hear less and less of it." Green^ writes in 1896 

 that Nietner's prediction came true and for some years 

 before coffee failed, the bug, as a pest, had practically dis- 

 appeared. On tea, which has replaced coffee in Ceylon, 

 the pest has succeeded in asserting itself only on indivi- 

 dual bushes and never on any considerable area. 



* Green. Coccidse of Ceylon, p. 234. 



