30 The Tea insects of India. 



Wood-Mason's report, gives an escellent account of the nature of the 

 damage in Assam: — 



" The general view of the tea is that the shoots are all brown, withered, and in fact 

 dead, and the tea presents a generally brown look, instead of the bright healthy green 

 tbat is usual. 



" On examining a tree so affected, if the blight has only recently affected it, the 

 appearance is very difEerent from that of a tree which has suffered some time. In the 

 former case, the general growth and the look is normal, but the youngest shoots and tips 

 are more or less spotted with brown, the size of the spots varying with the age of the 

 insect. If the bug is very young, the punctures are close and minute, and the discolora- 

 tions coalescent ; but if it is full grown, the spots are larger, say an eighth of an inch in 

 diameter. Again, if the punctures are recent, the colour is pale brown and darkest at the 

 edges; but if one or two or more days old, the spots are dark brown verging on black, 

 the entire leaf curling up and withering completely if they are close. 



" In the case of a tree that has suffered some time and severely, the symptoms are 

 often less visible at first glance ; the dead leaves have mostly fallen off, and the minute 

 shoots at the leaf-axils alone show the damage, and all are dry and dead ; there is less 

 dead leaf showing, and in its place we find dead ' tips ' everywhere. 



••A more cai'eful study will often show a still more unpleasant fact — i.e., that ere it 

 ceased entirely to shoot out, the tree had made many efforts to grow, all of which had been 

 rendered abortive; and a branch that has not yielded one single leaf or tip will present all 

 the appearance of having been very severely and persistently plucked. 



" On the tips of the young vigorous shoot being punctured, it has died as certainly as 

 if nipped off, and the eyes below in the leaf-asils shoot out vigorously ; and ere the bug 

 can do serious damage, one or two shoots have attained some size and carry several leaves; 

 but as the insects increase in size, these tips again are attacked and other shoots start from 

 other eyes, though attaining a less vigorous growth, and in a short time we have a regular 

 « broom,' where not one leaf or tip has been taken by us, but has been killed off or sucked 

 dry by the bug alone : drawings of such I send herewith to illustrate. When this is the 

 case, growth will have come to a complete standstill, as every shoot requires from (say) 

 forty to tifty days to mature from an eye to be fit to pluck. We may say the trees are shut 

 up for about two entire months at least ; and it is specially unfortunate that this takes place 

 usually about mid-season, and when we should be doing our very best. I do not state that 

 the entire garden is thus affected at once, or we should soon see tea itself at a standstill, 

 but that the particular patches and trees most blighted are so as before stated. It is 

 difficult to tell what part will be attacked this year or next : all places seem pretty equally 

 liable to blight, and, unless very bad indeed, it is seldom seen, as yet, over an entire 

 garden at once ; but that this will be the normal state eventually, I do not doubt. The 

 recovery of the tree is slow, unless pruned, and then is about as bad as the disease, as far 

 as our outturn of crop is concerned." 



According- to a summary of Hareourt's notes on mosquito blight in 

 the Darjiling district, as given in Indian Museum Notes, Vol. II, p. 48, 

 the blight does not ascend above an elevation of about 4,500 feet, and 

 most of the damage is done in the Terai, tea planted on black sandy 

 soil appearing to be particularly attacked. Gardens are often affected 

 to the extent of closing the crop earlier than usual and considerably 

 lessening the outturn. 



Helojpelfis theivora belongs to a group of insects which do not 

 The life-history of the Insect. P^^s^^^^'ough an inactive pupal stage. Ac 



cording to Harcourt, the eggs are about 



