garden of Berhampore also this insect proved most destruc- 

 tive to the potato crop, until the method of sowing seed of 

 potatoes along with a mixture consisting of rape-cake, ashes, 

 salt, lime and a little white arsenic was resorted to. No loss 

 took place since then from this cause, and the use of this 

 insecticidal manure is recommended as a preventive. 



1.252. Besides Agrotis suffusa, there are many other 

 Noctuid moths which are destructive to vegetables, poppy &c. 

 One of these is the Heliothes armigera, called Kujrain 

 in Monghyr and Boll-worm in America. Young bolls of 

 cotton are eaten into by these caterpillars and they also 

 feed on maize, poppy, tomatoes, peas, beans, and khesari 

 and other pulses in the cold weather, and also in the rainy 

 season. There are three generations of these insects in the 

 year. The carterpillar feeds on the lower surface of poppy 

 leaves and also on seeds and the seed-pods or opium-capsules 

 it gets entrapped in. A full grown caterpillar is over \\ inch 

 in length. It pupates in the earth. A single female moth of 

 the Boll-worm is able to lay as many as 500 eggs, layed at 

 dusk, chiefly on cotton plants. The larvae live chiefly on 

 leaves, but later on they bore into buds and bolls. Sometimes 

 after devouring the contents of one boll, the larva will come 

 out and attack another boll. The holes made by the cater- 

 pillars attract the chrysomelid beetle, Aulacophora abdomi- 

 nalis, which continues the destruction of the bolls. It is the 

 third generation from January that is usually found parasitic 

 on the cotton plants in about July and August. 



1.253. The common cabbage moth (Mamestra Brassicae) 

 is also a Noctuid. It is a' brown moth with transverse black 

 markings on the fore-wings, the centre of which is marked 

 with white. 



1.254. The Achaea melicerte which feeds on the leaves of 

 the castor-oil plant and the arahar plant, the Plucia nigri- 

 sigma which attacks the gram, the Leucania extranea which 

 attacks the pea, the Leucania loreyi which destroys paddy 



