The Tea insects of India. 



25 



Fatelig-arh and Behar, and as specimens have also been captured by ento- 

 mologists in Kulu, Solun, Sikkim, Calcutta, Mliow, Poona, and Quetta 

 there can be no doubt about its prevalence throughout India. 



The figure shows the moth, and the full-grown caterpillar, both 

 natural size, the former from a specimen in the Indian Museum, the latter 

 after Riley. The caterpillar is a soft dark-coloured grub which lives in a 

 hole in the ground in the day-time and sallies out at night to feed upon 

 young plants which it bites off close to the ground. 



Green notices that a single caterpillar will sometimes cut off as many 

 as twelve young tea plants in one night, the severed stems being left 

 lying about where they fall. It will thus be seen that the insect is capa^ 

 ble of doing a good deal of damage. 



Like other " cut worms" the caterpillar of Agrotis suffusa, when full 

 grown, transforms into a chrysalis in the ground. From this chrysalis 

 the moth afterwards emerges ready to mate and lays its eggs. The 

 insect has been very carefully studied in America by Dr. C. V, Riley, 

 United States Entomologist, who writes in one of his reports : — 



" The eggs are laid in small batches, and often in two or three layers, covered 

 sparsely with long scales from the abdomen of the female moth. They are pale- 

 fulvous in colour, and nearly spherical in shape, the base being somewhat flattened. 

 The polar ribs are not very distincti and the crown is small. These eggs we have 

 found laid on peach and sycamore leaves, upon which the larvae do not feed. The 

 larva in the first stage is also a semi-looper, the front prolegs being atrophied. The 

 species is parasitized by Tachinidse, which we have often bred from it." 



In Behar opium fields the caterpillar has been reported as chiefly 

 prevalent between November and March, the moth being common 

 from the beginning of February until the beginning of March. A 

 caterpillar, forwarded to the Indian Museum in May 1889 from Kur- 

 seong, transformed into a pupa on 17th May and emerged as a moth on 

 28th May. A moth again emerged in one of the Museum rearing-cages 



