THE AGRICULTUEAL PESTS OF INDIA. 23 



balloon-like bubble. The tentacles are covered with 

 delicate cells, each of which contains a minute coiled dart 

 or lasso, and if a foreign substance corne in contact with 

 the tentacles, millions of these weapons are hurled into it, 

 producing a peculiar paralyzing effect. 



Agrotis segetum, Steph., Schiff. Noctua segetum of 

 India and High Asia. The larva of this moth is the 

 very destructive ' black grub ' of the Ceylon coffee planter. 

 This pest is about an inch long, and is most abundant 

 from August to October. The caterpillar lives in the 

 ground, but comes out at night to feed, and is very 

 common and injurious. They attack not only coffee 

 trees, but all sorts of vegetables and flowers, and are very 

 destructive to gardens and in the field, as they eat every- 

 thing that is artificially raised, despising grass and weeds. 

 They generally appear only on certain fields, and will not 

 go over an estate. The insect is not confined to Ceylon ; 

 its ravages are well known in India, at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and Europe, where it injures the grain and beet- 

 root crops. In Ceylon it only attacks young coffee trees, 

 gnawing off the bark round the stem just above the 

 ground. Where the trees are very small, they are bitten 

 right off, and the tops sometimes partially dragged under 

 the ground, where the grubs may easily be discovered and 

 dislodged. The damage which they inflict on planta- 

 tions may be estimated when it is mentioned that Mr. 

 Nietner lost through them in one season, in certain fields, 

 as many as 25 per cent, of the young trees he had put 

 down. A. aquilina is a species of High Asia. N. 



Alope ocellifera, Walker (A. ricini, Fair.}, one of the 

 Lepidoptera, is a species of moth belonging to the family 

 Arctiidee. It occurs in Ceylon, in the Northern Circars 

 and Bengal, and has been described in Mr. Moore's 



