793 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIII. 



Nilgiris is not so wide as to make it impossible for the winged insect to cross, 

 so that it is curious if it does not occur on the Nilgiris, the climate of which 

 approximates to that of the Palnis. 



If the butterfly is not found on the Annamallays, it would be another 

 interesting point to ascertain the exact point where it ceases to exist in that 

 region, and the cause, which is not apparent to one who like myself knows 

 the country well, though I have not had the opportunity of chasing butter- 

 flies further than the Kannan Devan Hills. 



I see Bingham {Fauna of British India Series) mentions a Nilgiri form, 

 and '^ 5 Typical as described from Trichinopoly," this cannot mean that the 

 insect occurs at Trichinopoly, which is the headquarters of leather Castets, 

 S. J., (after whom the butterfly was named), who works in St. Joseph's 

 College in that town. 



AYLMER Ff. MARTIN. 



Bangalore, March 1915. 



No. XXI.— THE ''MOON-MOTH'' AS A PEST. 



This beautiful wild silk moth " Aetias selene, Hub." popularly known 



as the moon-moth — is one of those insects not commonly met with in numbers. 

 It might, therefore, be interesting to note that recently at the Agricultural 

 College, Coimbatore, this insect has been so numerous as to become a pest. 

 A number of trees, Odina loodiar, four to five years old, growmg in front of 

 the College were literally denuded of almost every leaf by Actias larvae. 

 Photographs show one tree completely defoliated with a few cocoons 

 attached to the bare branches and another partially damaged. A few of 

 these stout and gaudily coloured caterpillars first appeared on some of 

 these trees in October last and I did not then suspect that this rare 

 insect would again appear in such numbers as it did later. The second 

 brood, of caterpillars was observed on these trees in December and very 

 recently by about the middle of February the third set of caterpillars ap- 

 peared. This last brood of worms was sufliciently numerous to do a con- 

 siderable amount of damage to the young Odina trees. Many of these are 

 bare and completely leafless while a few others have been almost skeleton- 

 ised. On the soil around some of the badly attacked trees was seen a thick 

 layer of excrement pellets almost resembling sheep's dung. The large flimsy 

 and dirty yellow silken cocoons are found attached in numbers to the lower 

 portions of the stems of the trees close to the soil though a few are found 

 attached to branches and enclosed by a few leaves. A detailed account of 

 the life history of this insect as studied at Mussoorie is given by Hutton 

 (see — Cotes' account of the Wild Silk Moths of India — Indian Museum Notes, 

 Vol. II, No. 2-1891) ; but it may be noted here that the time occupied by 

 each stage in the life history of the creature differs in this locality as com- 

 pared with that at Mussoorie. This is naturally due to the climatic varia- 

 tions between a place along the Himalayas like Mussoorie and one in the 

 plains of South India. This insect has been noted to feed on various 

 plants such as Xanthoxyluin acanthopodium, Cedrela paniculata, Corearea 

 nepalensis, etc., etc. I have found it once or twice before on the Moringa 

 tree {Moringa pterygospermd) in Saidapet, Madras, but only one or two 

 caterpillars at a time and these moths were till now preserved as rare speci- 

 mens for the collection. Thwaites has noted it feeding on Odina wodiav 

 (see Moore's Lepidoptera of Ceylon). It will be interesting to learn if any 

 of the readers of this Journal have noted this insect on any of these plants 

 in such numbers at any time. 



