THE PLANTERS' INSECT FRIENDS. 



By Harold W. B. Moore. 



Every part of the sugar-cane is liable to attack by insects. The 

 blades are sapped by scale-insects, aud also eaten by grasshoppers and 

 caterpillars. The stem is sapped by other scale insects, and bored and 

 tunnelled by another set of caterpillars, by beetles and beetle larvae, and 

 by wood-ants. Lastly, the underground parts are assaulted by wood-ants, 

 scale-insects, and a third lot of caterpillars. 



Were these various pests allowed to have their own way the cultiva- 

 tion of the sugar-cane in British Guiana would be an absolute impossi- 

 bility. They are not, however, permitted to damage, kill, and destroy 

 the canes without let or hindrance, for they are greatly hampered, and in 

 some cases even completely stopped, in their diabolical work by several 

 agencies, one of the principal of which are certain other insects, and it is 

 of some of these, which constitute the planters' insect friends, I now pro- 

 ceed to give a short account. 



Let us begin with insects which attack the blades, nnd let us note 

 some of their insect enemies. 



The moths Remigia repanda and Laphygma frugiperda, if dis- 

 turbed from rest, are, while flying, eagerly seized and devoured by the 

 big green dragon-fly or pond-fly Lepthemis vesciculosa. In his grasp 

 they are powerless. He perches with them on a cane-blade or other 

 eminence, cuts off their head, wingp, and other almost juiceless parts, and 

 then gnaws into their thorax, so that death is fairly speedy. It is the 

 caterpillars, not the adult moths, that destroy the blades, but nevertheless 

 by consuming the moths the dragon-fly prevents to some extent the 

 deposition of eggs, which, if not parasitized or otherwise destroyed, would 

 eventually produce harmful caterpillars. 



The eggs of Laphygma frugiperda are parasitized by a minute 

 yellow hymenopterous insect, apparently the same which is also a para- 

 site of the eggs of the small moth-borers, while those of Lycophotia 

 infecta, also a moth, are parasitized by a little black hymenopteron, 

 named Telenon^us atripes by the late Peter Cameron. I once obtained 

 egg-clusters of this last moth aggregating nearly a thousand eggs, and of 

 these fully 687 had been killed off* by this parasite. 



Before going further it may be well to explain for the benefit of the 

 general reader the way in which egg-parasites work. It is as follows : — 

 The full-grown parasites, which are always micruscopic, sometimes only 

 about the size of the ordinary full-stop used in punctuation, seek out eggs 

 which butterflies, moths, or other insects have freshly laid. On finding 

 such eggs they deposit their own eggs inside of these by piercing the egg- 



