N<*. 3,] Sugarcane. 1 71 



Crambus partellus, Swinhoe. Habitat : Poona, October and 

 November ; Bombay, September and November. In great quantities 

 at Poona. Description: "Allied "to C. desistalis, Walker. Pink- 

 ish white, irrorated with grey and black atoms. Fore wings with 

 the irrorations (which are always darker and denser in the male 

 than in the female) making the costal portion dark, and forming- two 

 irregular, diffuse, very oblique bands across the wing, one before 

 the middle and the other beyond it, and running up to the apex ; 

 there is sometimes also a black dot at the end of the cell. Hind 

 wings pure white. Under side pure white, with some diffuse grey 

 colour in the interior of the fore wings of the male ; pure white and 

 unmarked in the female. Expanse of wings, S tu — x ^ ncn > ? lr ns — 

 1 T 5 ^ inch ," — (Swinhoe, I.e.) 



In Cotes and Swinhoe's Cat. of the Moths of India, Mhow 

 and Khandalla are given as additional localities for this species. 



As the damage to sugarcane caused by borers appeared to me 

 to be one of the most important I could investigate, I wrote in 

 February, 1901, to the Director of Land Records and Agriculture 

 North-Western Provinces and Oudh, owing to the reports made by 

 him in 1899 of the serious ravages caused by these insects in those 

 provinces during that year, on the subject. He arranged that I should 

 visit the Experimental Station near Cawnpore in April. My object 

 in this visit was, if possible, to obtain the eggs of Chilo simplex, 

 Butler, which is the most notorious of the lepidopterous borers. Un- 

 fortunately for my purpose this insect appears to have entirely 

 disappeared from the cane grown at the Experimental Station, so 

 my search for this insect at all stages failed. 



In June I visited Sikta, Bettiah, on the borders of Nepal, where 

 considerable quantities of cane is grown, but the only borer I found 

 there was Scirpophaga auriflua, Zeller, Chilo simplex being wholly 

 absent. A little later in the same month, however, I found the 

 larvae and pupa? abundant at Seeraha Indigo Concern in Champaran. 

 Here five distinct varieties of sugarcane are grown, known by the 

 vernacular names of Kalagera (also as the Bourbon cane), Chinia, 

 Nagori, Samsara and Burali. In all of these the larvae of C. simplex 

 were found, ranging from half-grown to full-grown examples. One 

 pupa only was found in a tunnel in the cane. 



LARVA when full grown -9 of an inch in length, cylindrical, taper- 

 ing slightly towards the head and anal segment ; head small, oval, 

 shining, blackish or pale ochreous in colour, the mouth-parts black, 

 the first segment with a large dorsal horny plate coloured like the 

 head ; segments three to ten bearing a subdorsal series of spots, 



