32 Mr. C. O. Waterhouse on the Tea-bugs of India. 
gardens such as this, and from the damage it does is one 
of the, if not the most, serious pests the tea bush has to 
contend against. It attacks the young shoots and 
appears to puncture them so that they shrivel up and 
iurn quite black. As yet there is no known cure. 
The method we adopt here is to employ a large 
force of small children, catching the insects by hand. 
This at best can only check it at the beginning of the 
season, for when acres and acres of tea are black with 
it, the thousands of insects brought in every day seem 
to make no difference. It is first noticeable about the 
beginning of the rains, i.v., the early part of June, and 
continues to increase until the end; the bushes attacked 
by it becoming gradually blacker, until after about the 
end of August or middle of September, they yield little 
or no leaf at al]. There is apparently no other plant it 
attacks, even in the jungle, and as far as one can see 
there is nothing that preys upon it. Wet dull weather 
is especially favourable to its propagation. It does not 
appear to fly much, and in the cold weather, after the 
bushes are pruned, there is not a sign of it. We always 
burn all the prunings, but it is doubtful whether much 
good is gained by so doing. It seems to appear 
spontaneously, first of alla bush here and a bush there, 
often acres apart, is attacked by it, then it gradually 
spreads.” 
Referring to Wood-Mason’s suggestion (‘‘ Report on 
the Tea-bug of Assam,” 1884, p. 18) that the indigenous 
tea-plant is not subject to the attacks of Helopeltis, Mr. 
Austen writes, “This is quite a fallacy, as this garden 
Maguracherra, consisting of some 450 acres, is composed, 
roughly speaking, of half hybrid and half indigenous, and 
last year the indigenous flats were badly blighted as well 
as the hybrid.” . . . “There was also another idea 
that heavy pruning eradicated the Helopeltis ; but last 
cold weather we cut back 50 acres of hybrid tea to a 
standard of i8 inches (the average height of a tea-bush 
is, say, 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches), and this year this part 
of the garden was the first to get blighted, and is by far 
the most blighted part of the garden ; there could have 
been very few leaf-buds left on the bushes. Also, each 
bush had its roots carefully forked round, and then the 
whole place was hoed te a considerable depth.””—Letter, 
Nov. 28th, 1893. 
