Ho. 1.] H. H. Mann — On Helopeltis theiovora. 



4.— NOTES ON HELOPELTIS THEIVORA, THE "MOSQUITO 



BLIGHT " OF TEA. 



By Harold H. Mann, M.S:. 



The recent progress which has been made in the methods of 

 attempting to deal with Helopeltis theivora, which is by far the most 

 serious insect pest of tea, justifies a description of these methods, 

 the principles on which they are based, and the results which appear 

 -to have been achieved. Before doing so, it will be as well to indi- 

 cate some points in the life-history which have recently been made 

 out, and to describe the insect, as it occurs in Cachar, more minutely 

 than has hitherto been done. 



We owe almost all our morphological descriptions of this capsid 

 bug to Mr. Waterhouse, who named it; to Mr. S. E. Peal and to 

 Mr. Dudgeon, who alone have attempted to describe it accurately. 

 Mr. Dudgeon's description of the adult mature insect is in fact one to 

 which there is, except in matters of detail, little to add, at any rate 

 as concerns the type which is almost exclusively found in the Dar- 

 jeeling Terai, the Duars, Cachar, and Sylhet. Mr. Waterhojse's 

 description was, however, as follows. 



? Black ; pronotum orange yellow, with a black line near the 

 anterior margin, the base margined with black ; scutellum brown, 

 black at the base, spine or horn long, much curved, black, at the 

 apex brown: antennae dark brown, basal joint paler, yellow at the 

 base : femora dark brown mottled with light brown, with a light 

 yellow ring at the base : tibiae light brown, speckled with dark 

 brown. 



On this Mr. Dudgeon remarks: "the female insect only is des- 

 cribed : presumably, therefore, the insect figured to illustrate the 

 description* is also a female : the ovipositor is not shown, however., 

 although it is more than half as long as the rostrum. It is difficult 

 to distinguish it on the underside of the abdomen, folded, as it is, 

 close against the dark shiny surface with which it matches well in 

 colour : but, if the body be pressed, it rises from the surface and can 

 be distinctly seen with the naked eye. It is in the form of a curved 

 corneous process, rising from the centre of the sixth abdominal seg- 

 ment on the underside and reaching to the eighth segment. Its 

 colour, like thatof the posterior abdominal segments, is dark browu.f 



*In Indian Economic Entomology, Vol. I., No. 4. 



t Though a considerably redder brown than these segments (H. H. M-\ 



