164 



Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. V. 



of it. It pupates on the stems of the indigo, making a hammock- 

 shaped cocoon of sooty-coloured rough silk, mixed with fragments 

 of dead leaves. The larva being very small it does but little damage 

 as far as my experience goes. 



15. Crocidophora pallida, Moore. Family Pyralidse. 



I bred a single specimen only of this pyralid moth from indigo. 

 It is remarkable in having the apex of the fore wing greatly produced 

 and subfalcuta. 



VII.— INSECT PESTS OF THE SUGARCANE. 



On Saccharum officinavum, Linn , Natural Order Andropo- 

 gonece. The Sugarcane. 



/. Dictyophara pallida, Donovan. Sub-family Eurybrachydinae. 

 Family Fulgoridds, Order Rhynchota. 



Fulgora pallida, Donovan's Nat. Hist. Ins. India, Ed. 1, pi. viii, fig. 2 (1800) ; 

 Pseudophana pallida, Westwood in Donovan's Nat. Hist. Ins. Ind. Ed. 2, pi. viii, 

 fig. 2 (1838) ; Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. vol, xviii, p. 150, n. 3 (1841) ; Dictyophara 

 pallida, Walker, List Horn. Ins. B. M , part II, p. 310, n. 18 (1851), [ nec> 

 D. pallida, Walker, I.e., p. 320, n. 35 ] ; Atkinson, Journ. A. S, B. vol. lv, pt. 2, 

 p. 27, n. 26 (1886) ; Ind. Mus. Notes ; vol. v, No. 2, p. 43, pi. v, fig. 1, ova, larva 

 nymphce and imago (1900). 



In "Indian Museum Notes" (I. c.) the fulgorid bug, Dictyophara 

 pallida^ Donovan, is reported as damaging the sugarcane crop 

 in the North Arcot district and at Coimbatore in South India. 

 It is said that the canes when infested become stunted and damaged. 

 The life history of this pest does not seem to have been studied. 

 In April, 1901, I visited Cawnpore in the North-Western Provinces 

 and Muzaffarpur in Behar, Bengal, and in both places found this 

 insect in abundance in the sugarcane fields. The perfect insects 

 rest on the leaves of the sugarcane with their heads pointed 

 upwards and fly short distances when disturbed. Many specimens 

 one behind the other, rest on a single sugarcane leaf. On an old 

 field of sugarcane at the Cawnpore Experimental Station I first 

 found the eggs ; subsequently they were discovered in considerable 

 quantities, though not to quite so great an extent, on newly planted 

 sugarcane. In the case of the old sugarcane the eggs were laid on 

 the fresh shoots, the longer leaves of which were from two to three 

 feet in length. The eggs are rather large for the size of the insect, 

 being 2 \ of an inch in length (1 millim.), a perfect oval in shape, the 

 surface apparently slightly rough under a lens but exhibiting no 



