98 



Indian Museum Notes. 



[ Vol. IIL 



In April 1892 Mr. A. V. Knyvetfc forivarded specimens oP a moth, 



the cater[)illai' o£ whicli had been noticed as 

 Castor-oil seed caterpillar. i.^ i • , -i ! i /7>- • 



attacUmg" castor-oil plants [liicmus commu- 

 nis) in the Sonthal Per^^unnalis. 'J he sjiecimens were in too poor a state 

 of preservation for satisfactory examination, but, as fai' as could be made 

 out, they were identical with sj ecimens in the Museum collection which 

 have been determined as belongin<^- to the species Couogethes jmncti- 

 f oralis (iuen. 'ihe caterpillar attacks the feeds and is said to have done 

 a lar^e amount of dituraae. 



In March 1892 Mr. J. MoUison, Superintendent of Farms, Bombay, 



„ , , . , , -,1 forwarded pcds of Eombay hemp [Crotalaria 



Crutalaria Jtincea caterpillar. _ ^ j i \ 



juncea) tunnelled by the larvae of a micro- 

 lepidopterous insect. Mr. Mollison wrote tiiat the insect had been very 

 destructive in Baruda in the months of October and November, a third 



of the pods kept for seed being- affected. 

 When full-fed the caterpillars spun them- 

 selves up into little silken cocoons, which, 

 in the case of the ones reared in the 

 Museum, Avere attached to the sides of the 

 box in which the pods were placed. It 

 is prolable, therefore, that the habit of 

 the insect is to desert the pods before 

 sjiinning- its cocoon. Moths emerged in the early part of April; they 

 ]irove to be Phycidse, but the species is new to the Museum collection, so 

 specimens have been sent to Europe for precise identitication.(i) 



In April 1892 some cut worms and Elateridae larvae, said to have 



^ , , , . ^., , . proved destructive to potato plants in Kalim- 



rotato pests in Siluiira. i-v • t • ^ o 



pong, Darjeeling-, were received from Babu 



N. G, Mukharji. The insects were too immature for precise identification, 



but the cut worms were likely to have belonged to the species Jgrotis 



suffusn Fabr. (Noctues) a species which was reared on a previous occasion 



in the Museum from caterpillars which proved destructive to potato plants 



in Kurseong. Kerosene emulsion was tried by Babu Mukharji, but the 



results, though encouraging, do not seem to have been at all conclusive. 



At the time that the emulsiori was applied very few stems had been cut, 



though numerous grubs were to be found at the foot of each plant; 



after the emulsion had been aj)plied, Babu Mukharji found that more 



(') Tlie insect has since been kindly examined by the well known entomologist Mr. F. 

 Moore, who identifies it as the species Mellia zincJcenella {Phycis zinchenella Trict.) a not 

 uncommon Phycid in Europe, India, and Ceylon. 



