6 Indian Economic Entomology, [ Yol, 1I» 



fact that the insect passes most of its time in holes in the ground, makes 

 insecticide dressings, such as gas-lime, wood-ashes, and soot, likely 

 to tend to discourage the increase of the pest. Frequent stirring 

 of the ground also has been recommended as tending to expose the 

 caterpillars to the birds which feed upon them, and in Ceylon tea 

 gardens, according to Mr. E. E, Green, smooth conical holes sunk in the 

 beds, when the earth is moist, have sometimes been found successful as 

 traps. They should be made with a smoothly pointed stake pressed into 

 the earth and rotated until the sides are smooth and firm, so that the 

 caterpillars may be unable to climb out, when they fall into the holes ia 

 the course of their nightly wanderings. 



Through the Director of Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal, were 

 received in January 1890 specimens of Noctues larvse, probably belong- 

 ing to the species Agrotis sujjusa. These insects had proved destructive 

 to rabi crops both in Murshidabad and in Tipperah. In Murshidabad 

 the Cauoongoe of Jungipore reported that altogether he estimated the 

 produce of 2,000 bigahs of land to have been destroyed; the crops chiefly 

 attacked were wheat, barley, gram, oats and peas, oil-seeds and some 

 pulses appearing to be untouched ; the insects attacked the very young 

 plants only, the older plants escaping. The only remedy known was irri- 

 gation, which caused the caterpillars to come to the surface, where they 

 were exposed to the birds ; irrigation^ however, was practicable only in 

 some cases. In the Sarail estate, Tipperah, the injury was chiefly con- 

 fined to young tobacco and potato plants, mustard growing close by 

 being untouched. 



From Mr. J. Coekburn were received in March 1890 notes and 

 specimens illustrative of the Cut worms which had recently attacked poppy, 

 gram, pea, linseed and mustard crops in Oudh, many of the cultivators 

 complaining that their individual losses during the season from Cut 

 worms, to crops other than poppy, amounted to from twenty to twenty- 

 five rupees. In the case of poppy fields, both larvse and pupse were found 

 in March, the pupse in the loose damp earth of the ridges between the 

 poppy beds, where they stand erect in the ground from two to four inches 

 below the surface. The larvse were reared and proved to belong, in some 

 cases, to the species Agrotis suffusa, and in others to the species Ochroplenra 

 Jlammatra, both belonging to the family Noctuidse of the group Noctues. 

 Moths of the species Agrotis suffusa were rarely seen, but the moths of 

 Ochropleura Jiammatra crowded at night into the house, being apparently 

 attracted by the light, and were largely destroyed by bats. In a subse- 

 quent note Mr. Coekburn observes that moths of Agrotis suffusa again 

 began to appear in the middle of September 1890. 



Noctues larvse were received in January 1891 from Mr. R. H. 

 Morris, of Mysore, who wrote '.— 



"Another pest is doing very great damage to my estate. It is a grub or 



