MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 179 



T/ie Grub. Immediately on hatching, the grub which is of the charac- 

 teristic Buprestid form^ — flat, round, wedgeshaptd, large head and thorax 

 and the body tapering to a point at the posterior end — splits open a 

 portion of the underside of the egg and begins to eat through into the 

 leaf tissue. The npper side of the egg remains quite intact. The wedge- 

 shaped, flat front portion of the grub is thrust into the tissue of the leaf 

 and the grub works gradually from side to side consuming the substance 

 of the leaf all the time without in any way injuring the epidermal layers 

 of the leaf and thus a small cavity is formed in the leaf. The grub goes on 

 widening the cavity gradully and feeding for about a month by which time 

 a fairly big pocket about half the area of the leaf is formed and pupation 

 takes place within this cavity now. The newly hatched out grub is 2 mm. 

 long and I mm. broad at the broadest portion. It is of a pale whitish colour. 

 The fully developed grub is of a dull white colour with a tinge of yellow 

 and measures 11'5 to 12 mm. lengthwise and2"V5 to 3'5 mm. at the 

 broadest part. The centre of the segments 2nd to the 10th behind the 

 head in the grubs, both on the dorsal and ventral sides are marked with 

 peculiar markings in black resembling "shirt" buttons. The larval life 

 is 29 days. 



The pupa. Pupation takes place in the larval chamber. The pupa is 

 flat and brownish in colour and is 6 mm. long and 3"5 mm. broad. The 

 pupal life lasts 9 days. The adult beetle on emerging from the pupal 

 stage remains within the chamber for a few hours and then bites a hole 

 through the lower surface of the chamber and escapes ©ut and begins feed- 

 ing on the leaves. 



Natural enemies. Found small black ants Camp'inotus sp. feeding on 

 freshly laid eggs. A very minute chalcid parasite parasitises the grub. 

 It was found to walk over the upper surface of the pocket of the leaf tap- 

 ping with antennae the difl"erent portions and finally bendirg its abdomen 

 to pierce the thin wall of the pocket and lay eggs on the grub. 



Conchifiion. Considering the fact that no mention is made of any insects 

 afi'ecting Butei, frondosa plants seriously and this is one of the important 

 plants on which lac is raised in India, I venture to record the above facts 

 regarding this insect in the hope that lac growers in India will be parti- 

 cularly interested in the subject. 



P. V, SUBRAMANIAM, 



Assistant Entomologist, 

 Mysore Agricultural Department. 

 Bangalore, 15tJi March 1920. 



^H In March, 1917, I came across a few peculiar onion bulbs of which three 

 ^^Figs. 1-4) have been figured here. In external appearance these were 

 indistinguishable from other bulbs of A. cepa, but, on closer examination, 

 were found to diS"er in being easily compressible and in containing 

 abortive inflorescences (Infl.). It is a matter ol surprise that no similar 

 case of abortive inflorescence has been either cited or described in either 

 Master's Vegetable Teratology or any other available literature. 



Although left for a fairly long time in a grocer's store, curiously enough, 

 these specimens contained inflorescences (Infl.) bearing full-sized (deter- 



No. XXV.— A SHORT NOTE ON THE ATROPHIC ABORTION 

 OF THE INFLORESCENCE OF THE ONION {ALLIUM CEPA, L.) 



( With two plates). 



