98 Indian Economic Entomology. [Vol I. 



longitudinal stripes of pale reddish-brown. At this stage they bore into 

 the seed capsules, which to suit them must be either somewhat advanced, 

 with much of the drug extracted, or else naturally deficient in narcotic 

 juice; for they carefully avoid the young healthy capsules, the milky 

 juice of which, as Scott found by experiment, has a strong narcotic effect 

 upon them. One caterpillar will eat, or at least render useless, the whole 

 seed contents of an ordinary capsule. The fate of the insect, however, 

 according to Scott, greatly depends upon the amount of seed in the cap- 

 sule it has attacked ; for, if the capsule happens to be a small one, the 

 caterpillar leaves it, after clearing out the contents, and then strays 

 over the plant, nibbling other capsules, and sometimes even boring into 

 the stalk, until finally it withdraws to the lower part of the plant, where 

 it pupates in a small cocoon attached to the underside of a leaf, and 

 with a portion of the margin of a leaf folded over it. 1 If, on the other 

 hand, there is more seed in the capsule than it can get through, it generally 

 pupates within the capsule, the result being that from 70 to 90 per cent, 

 of the insects perish ; for the moth, on emerging from the chrysalis inside 

 the capsule, is generally unable to escape through the small hole that was 

 cut by the larva in the tough wall, and there is no other means of egress. 

 In proof of this observation Scott collected some four hundred pupse and 

 moths, all of which he found entrapped in the capsules of poppy plants 

 growing on a plot of ground but five cottahs in extent. From the exti'a- 

 ordinary mortality which he observed at this stage of the insect's life Scott 

 concludes that the opium poppy has only comparatively recently become 

 the food-plant of the insect, which he supposes has not yet completely 

 accommodated itself to it. 2 He notices incidentally that mynas very 

 often perch upon the infested capsules and snap up the caterpillar as soon as 

 it appears at the opening, where the bird can get at it ; this may in some 

 cases account for caterpillars not leaving the capsules before pupating : the 

 matter, however, would seem to require further elucidation, especially as 

 in America the caterpillars of this species always pupate in the ground. 



When full fed the caterpillar (fig. 4 c.) is from an inch to an inch 

 and a half long, and about the thickness of a goose-quill ; it is of the 

 usual Noctues shape, with the full complement of five pairs of short 

 fleshy abdominal prolegs, besides the three pairs of thoracic legs. The 

 pupa (fig. 4 b.) is chestnut brown in color and of the usual Noctues shape. 

 The moth (fig. 4 a.) is dirty-brown in color, marked as shown in the 

 plate, and varying much in tint. 



1 In America the species pupates in the ground ; this observation therefore requires 

 confirmation. 



2 The writer is inclined to think that more of the moths may escape from the capsules 

 than Scott supposes ; for when freshly emerged from the pupa case and before the wings 

 have expanded, many moths make their way through narrow and even through much ob- 

 structed passages. It is sufficient to instance the silk moth, which, after emerging from 

 the pupa case, works its way through the tough and closely-woven tissue of the silk cocoon. 



