DEVELOPMENT OF MEALY BUG 65 



dropping of the leaves. The injury to coffee is mainly due 

 to this cause and not usually from the insect directly. 

 The shade trees in Mysore, even when badly attacked, seem 

 to be able to throw off the insect and survive. In any case, 

 the apprehensions of serious injury which Lefroy appears 

 to have had when he wrote the Insect Pests of Coffee 

 seem to be groundless so far as Mysore is concerned. 



Enemies. — There are but few enemies. Reference has 

 already been made to the moth Eublemma whose larva 

 feeds on both brown and mealy bugs. One hymenopterous 

 parasite has been reared out. The egg masses are attacked 

 by a fly whose maggots may occasionally be found in them. 

 There are also two species of lady-birds whose larvae feed 

 on the egg masses. None of 1:hese occurs in sufficient 

 numbers to act as an efficient check. 



Beinedial Measures. — The series of recommendations 

 which Lefroy makes are based on- assumptions wiiich are 

 no longer justified by the large experience of the pest now 

 available. The insect has too wide a range of food plants 

 to render practical the replacement of shade trees liable 

 to attack by those which are immune. The isolation of 

 unattacked shade trees and estates is also impracticable 

 on account of the prevalence of the pest on almost every 

 estate, nor is the pest so serious as to require these costly 

 and elaborate precautions. As has already been remarked, 

 the more serious loss is not from the death of the shade 

 trees but the defoliation of coffee trees growing below them 

 and this occurs only when the shade is dense and low. 

 Under very tall trees, coffee is more secure, perhaps because 

 the hone}^ dew is more widely scattered in its fall and 

 thus has no chance of concentrating on a few trees. The 

 drier conditions under such shade also may have an 

 influence. It should be possible, therefore, to reduce the 

 sooty mould and consequent injury by thinning out the 

 shade. As regards the shade trees themselves, in the 

 rare event of these succumbing to the attack, they will 

 have to be replaced by others, as spraying with a costly 

 high pressure spraying apparatus is out of the question. 

 On small plants, as garden plants, coffee, tea, the pest can 

 be easily kept in check by spraying with a small sprayer 

 on the lines recommended for green bug. 



F 



