No. 3,] Fruit trees. 123 



stage measures about 22 mm, in total length. There were countless 

 numbers of these insects on the trees, resting in the daytime on the 

 shady sides of the leaves and avoiding the sun. They appeared to 

 be eating nothing, unless they feed at night. Doubtless the eggs 

 are laid on the very small and young spikes of the mango flowers 

 when the flowers first make their appearance. The larvas and 

 nymphs apparently quite cover the flower-spikes, and suck up much 

 of the sap or juice which should go to set the young mango fruit. 

 The trees which had blossomed presented a most curious appearance. 

 The flower-spikes, often a foot in height, were of a dull yellow 

 colour, the flowers themselves dead, dried up and brown ; all the 

 leaves beneath the flower-spikes, whether of the mango tree or any 

 other plant growing under the trees, were thickly covered with sticky 

 sweet " honey-dew", the leaves being highly polished (glazed or 

 varnished) in appearance in consequence. The " honey-dew" is the 

 juice or sap of the mango tree which has dripped off from the 

 flower-spikes on to the leaves below. Not only do the insects live 

 on this liquid, but Mr. J. H. Hayman, the Deputy Director of Agri- 

 culture, who lives at the Experimental Station, and has watched the 

 insects when immature, tells me that the sap actually drips off the 

 flower-spikes, and one can hear it continually dropping, doubtless 

 from the punctures made by the haustellum of the bug and its own 

 evacuations. Not only, therefore, does the insect use a large quantity 

 of the juice for its own sustenance, but there is a large wastage from 

 the punctures made by it in the epidermis of the flower-spike. At 

 the time of my visit the insects were all in the perfect or imago 

 state, small brown "hoppers" which exist in thousands on each 

 tree, and fly up when the branches are disturbed. During the. heat 

 of the day they rest in the shade on the under surface generally of 

 the mango leaves by dozens and fifties on a single leaf, always 

 with their heads upwards and all pointing in the same direction. 

 On all the leaves surrounding a flower-spike were to be seen the shed 

 skins of the insect when changing from the nymph to the imago 

 stage. They are all facing the same way, looking upwards, their 

 heads towards the stem or petiole of the leaf, and scattered very 

 regularly over the leaf, a small space surrounding each skin, so that 

 at ecdysis one insect does not interfere with another. I am informed 

 that the pest is not an annual one, at least in ordinary years it does 

 no great damage, the present year being one of the exceptions, the 

 crop being practically nil. 



In Muzaffarpur, Behar, the mango crop has practically failed 

 from the depredations of this or a closely allied insect this (1901) 



