MlNOll 



PESTS. 



121 



aucl Belgaum. It consists in dragging a net through the rice to 

 sweep up the insects; the net is 36 feet by 7 feet, weighted at one 

 side, with ropes on the bottom to drag it by, and a bamboo to hold 

 up the top. Nine men drag it through the field, the lower edge 

 below water sweeping up grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other insects. 

 The method was successfully adopted in Belgaum and, where the 

 cultivators work together, large areas of rice-lands can be effectually 

 cleared of the pest. 



Attempts to destroy the eggs during the cold weather have failed, 

 owing to the difficulty of finding the egg masses, which are buried to a 

 depth of two inches in the soil. 



The Kice Grasshopper is common throughout the plains of Bengal, 

 the Central Provinces, parts of the Bombay Presidency and Mysore. 



Minor Pests. 



A number of insects feed upon the rice-plant and it is uncertain 

 which of these can rank as pests. Caterpillars are particularly common 

 and a number have already been reared from rice but only rarely found 

 to be injuriously numerous. An important local pest is the " beddi" 1 

 insect of Bhandara and Kanara, winch is closely allied to the aquatic 

 caterpillar 2 of Burma. The work of these is apparently identical ; both 

 eat the leaves and live in a case formed of a leaf -blade twisted over and 



FIG. 139. 

 Butterfly of large Rice Caterpillar. 



1 38. Nymphula depunctalis. Guen. (Pyralidsc.) 



2 Nymphula fluctuosalis. Zell, (Pyralida).) 



