No. 1. ] Miscellaneous Notes. 13 



The insect does a good deal of datnao'e in Calcutta gardens as a de- 

 foliator. The egg's are probably laid by the female inside her case. The 

 young caterpillars at first thatch themselves with little rough bits of leaf, 

 gradually adding to the case thus constructed and making it bigger and 

 neater as they grow older. When full fed, they spin themselves up into 

 their cases, which they suspend from some convenient branch by silken 

 threads. They then turn themselves round inside the case, so that tlie 

 head rests where the tail has previously been. In this position, inside 

 the ease, the caterpillar shuffles off its larval skin and becomes a chrysalis, 

 the male moth finally emerging from what was previously the tail end 

 of the caterpillar's case, and generally leaving part of the chrysalis skin 

 protruding from the case, as shown in the figure. The male is the 

 active little moth depicted in the figure ; the female has not yet been 

 observed, but is likely to be a wingless grub-like animal which passes 

 the whole of her life inside the case. ■ London purple wash was tried 

 for destroying this insect upon ornamental shrubs in Calcutta; the 

 results, however, were not satisfactory, though it is only fair to add that 

 the wash v/as mixed and applied by an unskilled native mali, so the 

 fault may have lain with him, and not with the insecticide. The imme- 

 diate result of applying the wash was to kill the leaves, so that the shrubs 

 consisted for some time of nothing but apparently dry twigs. But, 

 though the leaves were killed, it was found that many of the caterpillars 

 spun themselves up inside their cases on the bare twigs and remained 

 alive during the whole time the shrubs were without leaves, the conse- 

 quence being that when fresh leaves appeared the caterpillars descended 

 upon them and began eating them up as industriously as before. (The 

 figure shows the male moth, together with the pupa case from which it 

 emerged). 



In January 1890 Mr. T. T. Leonard reported ini'iry to apple trees 



in Bangalore by the aphid Schizoneura lani- 



Apple Scale iu Bangalore. a„ „ i. st x.\^' ■ j. • 



^'^ ^ gera. An account ot this insect is given on 



page 51. Kerosene emulsion has proved useful in some cases in keeping 

 this insect in check, but in many cases the destruction of infested trees 

 has appeared to be the only effectual means of dealing with the pest. 

 The life history of the insect has not yet been observed in India, but is 

 no doubt very much the same as what obtains in Europe. In Europe, 

 according to the observations of Lichtenstein, as recorded in the Ento- 

 mologists' Monthly Magazine, 1878, page 134, a winged sexless female 

 begets the wingless male and female which do not feed but produce the 

 winter &^g, which develops in the spring into the wingless female. These 

 wingless females settle down, and, after moulting a number of times, form 

 the gall, and reproduce themselves asexuaily ; their offspring again, which 

 are also wingless, migrate to some fresh spot and then settle themselves 



