No. 3.} Vegetables. 133 



1. Aulacophora excavata, Baly. Sub-family Galerucinse. Family 

 Chrysomelidse. Order Coleoptera. Plate ix, Fig. i, 1 a, dorsal and 

 lateral views. 



On April 25th, 1901, Babu Jadu Nath Das, of Pulsar, Bishnupur, 

 Twenty-four Parganas, sent some beetles to the Indian Museum, 

 Calcutta, saying that they were damaging the Patal and other vege- 

 tables of the cucumber order in his garden. On July 17th, 1901, he 

 wrote that these insects had entirely destroyed his plants of squash, 

 all the leaves and tender twigs being devoured ; also that his Patal 

 plants were also eaten up, but that after the recent rain the roots 

 had thrown out shoots, and the plants may bear a meagre crop, He 

 found hand-picking these beetles too tedious and did not attempt it, 

 and that a sprinkling of very dilute phenyle seemed to have no 

 effect. 



Mr. Martin Jacoby has kindly identified the beetles as Aulaco- 

 phora excavata, Baly. One of them is figured twice natural size on 

 Plate ix, Figs. I, 1 a. The antennae, head, thorax, abdomen and legs 

 are ochreous-yellow, the elytra shining steel-blue. 



On Solarium melongena, Linn. Natural Order Solanacce. The 



egg-plant, or brinjal. 



1. Epilachna vigtnti-octo-punctata, Fabricius, Family Coccinel* 

 lidas* Order Coleoptera. 



In July 1900, Dr. George Watt, CLE., Reporter on Economic 

 Products, Government of India, forwarded some lady-bird beetles and 

 moths reported to be infesting the brinjal plants at Khaspur in the 

 Twenty-four Parganas near Calcutta, with the remark that the 

 lady-bird was, he presumed, in reality the planter's friend, and that 

 the moth was the actual pest. 



The beetles on examination proved to be Epilachna viginti-octo- 

 punctata, Fabricius. The lady -birds forming the genus Epilachna, 

 contrary to the usual habits of the family to which it belongs, are 

 purely vegetable feeders, and are therefore pests, the more danger- 

 ous as they may be mistaken to be beneficial insects. This parti- 

 cular species has been frequently reported as attacking brinjals in 

 various parts of Bengal. The beetle is figured in (i Indian Museum 

 Notes," vol. iii, n. 6, p. 9 (1896). 



The moths received at the same time, apparently a species of 

 Tineina % were too damaged for identification. 



