8 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 1899. 
oa tea. It is only the mature beetle so far that has 
been seen on tea. I questioned the late Mr. S. E. 
Peal on this point carefully, and he assured me that it 
certainly did not breed on tea, but, in his opinion, lived 
its early life on iilii grass llmperata arundinacci) . 
Eegarding the manner of its depredations there can 
be no doubt. Mr, Edg.\I!, its original discoverer, says, 
"These insects scrape the green stem below the 
Pekoe or Pekoe-Souclioug leaf, sometimes below the 
souchong leaf if the flush is quick grown, and 
the stem soft. They scrape or eat a place on 
it from half an inch to one and a quarter inch ia 
length and from just touching it to three-fourths 
through. According to the depth they go, so soon do 
the two or three leaves above inmble over and wither. 
Should they mnltiply, they will be very destructive ta 
new flushes. ' The Assistant Manager of Morau 
Company, Assam, in his letter even goes more fully 
into the subject. He says " So serious is it that I 
estimate a loss of at least a maund of tea from this 
flush alone, whicli I am nosv plucking, and the loss on 
the entire year must be very serious.'' ''The insect 
eats or gnaws only a small portion of the stem of the 
young shoot, which, whenever the sun touches it 
withers, droops, and in about a day falls off and then 
the shoot looks just as if it had been plucked ; so that 
to discover the entire depredations of this little pest, 
the bushes have to be examined ouce or twice uvery 
day." Mr. S. E , Peal's original account of this pest 
is als > worthy of being quoted, since it throws some 
additional light on the methods of procedure adopted 
by this insect. "Naturally," he says, it is a grass, 
eater, and may be found in considerable numbera 
where larger grasses abonnd in the open. It has a 
habit of alighting on the tips and flies rather slowly, 
resting under the curved-over tips of the uhi grass. 
These insects are at times found in threes or fours, 
and rest there in the little shxde Hfforded. In attack- 
ing tea, they generally eat away portions of the green 
stem of the shoot that is just fit to pluck ; the shoot 
falls over, withers, dies, and turns black and dry. If 
this beetle is at all common, considerable damage is 
done, and a garden or patch of tea presents a brown, 
withered appearance. As the portion eaten out of each 
stem is not large, a single beetle may ruin half a 
dozen shoots as one morning's work" 
The author of Notes on Tea in Darjeeling says, 
" This is a small reddish yellow insect, which always 
runs up if cow-dung has been put down, and sometimes 
on new extensions, probably from the same cause. 
This beetle seems to attack heavy pruning or young 
tea more than pieces. It bites the shoot low down, 
and the slioot then withers and rots away. If there 
is sun-grass near the tea, the beetle goes to the grass, 
instead of the tea." 
Ml'. Bambkr did not evidently give much attention 
to this pest as he devotes only some two lines to it and 
says, " at present the damage done has been small." 
Mr. Cotes [Insects end Mites, etc.) gives no particu- 
lars as to its depredations, but refers to the Indian 
Masezim Notos. Vol. I., p. KJG, where it is stated that 
specimens had been received from Mr. S E. Peal 
in 1885. A Daijeeling correspondent in The Planter 
says, " Often when reading articles on tea blights I 
have been surprised never to have seen the 'Orange 
beetle' mentioned." "I have often seen a dozen or 
more of these beetles on one bush, and every bud 
lying over dry and making the bush look almost as 
though wiihering up at first sight. Another pecu- 
liarity about them is, that they only seem to go for 
the Assam ,/«<.•.■, and are scarcely ever seen on a China 
bush, evidently preferring the more succulent shoot of 
the Assam bush to the less juicy one of the China." 
The fact of this insect showing a decided preference 
for the Assam tea is a point of considerable interest. 
This I had recorded in my diary and found, when in 
Asfain, that Mr. Peal and others had made the same 
observation. 
Rf.medy. — In consequence of our ignorance of 
the early history of this insect, only the one cure is 
open for consideration, namely, to collect and destroy 
the beetle. This Mr. F. Moore recommended over 20 
years ago, and nothing further has been brought to 
light, ftlr. Peal was of opinion that far from tilu. 
grass being a protection (as suggested by the author 
Notes on Tea in Daijceliiiq) it is the chief cause of 
the mischief. While walking through one of the 
Moran Company's gardens Mr. Peal stripped the 
long blades of ula grass through his hand and de- 
monstrated to me tbfrcby the day habit of the insect. 
But while Mr. Peal speaks of the insect accomplish- 
ing its ravages in the morning, I found the insect iu 
the Golaghat Sub-Division most active late in the 
afternoon. It is thus probable that it feeds both in 
the morning and in the afternoon. 
A planter whose letter originally appeared in the 
Tea Giir.ette, says, " I have had thousai ds of bushes 
damaged by this insect, and find it piys 'hand iver 
fist' t< gi\e coolies so much for catching the little 
pests, .'say a pice for fifty. By so doing I have suc- 
ceeded in deKtroyiug as many as 20,000 in the day."' 
Mr. Peal says, ''eight or ten well-made butterfly 
nets, depth, say 18 inches, and diameter of mouth 
1 foot, ring or hook of stout brass wire, bent, soldered 
and inserted in 4 feet high bamboo handles. These 
in the hands of as many smart boys will bringdown 
the numbers very rapidly. If at all plentiful, a boy 
can easily ' bug' 300 beetles per hour, aud where not 
much of a pest, I have taken several times myself at 
the rate of 250 per hour. A few days of this and the 
nuisance will abate very perceptibly." 
Ladybirds Bketle Mistaken for thk Orange 
Beetle. — I desire in passing to warn those, 
ni.familinr with the appearance of the Orange Beetle, 
not to be too hasty in coniiog to the conclusion that 
any small orange-coloured or red beetle, found on tea, 
is the pest here dealt with, or '• at all events has no 
business" on the tea and had, therefoie, belter be 
removed. While vi-siting a garden in the Sibsagar 
District, the manager informed me that some lady- 
birds that I had caught and was examining were 
Peal's Beetle. I assured him he was mistaken, 
aud that the ladybird was one of the planter's best 
friends. It was no good my protesting that he was 
mistaken, for " some years ago they had caught that 
very insect by the thousands daily." Of course this 
was a case of mistaken identity. The insect to 
which he alluded, as having been collected, T found 
subsequently \sa3 the orang - beetle right enough. 
The ladybird beetle is almost circular in outline and 
of a bright red c lour with a few spots on its wing- 
cases. The orange beetle is a narrow elongated 
insect with a somewhat large and curiously trun- 
cated head, as if cut off abiuptly. The wing-cases 
are of one uniform orange yellow colour throughout 
and seem as if some one had dibbed them all over 
with the point of a needle — the surface of the wing- 
case being pitted. The wing-cases of the ladybird 
are perfectly smooth and polished. 
The larvce and even the mature insect of the 
ladybird beetle are carnivorous and feed for the most 
part on the black aphis [Cetjlonia thecccola), and I 
believe also on the larvffi of the mosquito and green-fly. 
I have watched them repeatedly devouring the black 
aphis, and been surprised that colonies of these 
curious aphides were not alarmed by the appearance 
among them of so formidable an enemj'. They seem 
undisturbed and await their turn of destruction per- 
fectly unconcerned. 
The ladybird does not injure the tea in any way 
and should most certainly be encouraged, on no 
account destroyed, through the mistaken notion of 
its being the orange beetle. 
3. (.4.) ASTYCUS CHRYS , CHLOETJS, IVied. 
The Green Beetle. 
References. — Indian Museum Notes, Vol. Ill , 99, 
126; Cotes, Ins. and Mites, etc., 8. 
History, — I have given this insect the name 
for Green Beetle as a simple and characteristic des- 
cription Mr. Cotes tells us that it "was sent to the 
Indian Museum in April 1892 from a tea garden in 
Oachar, where it was supposed to have been the cause 
of some injury to the bashes. It was said to strip 
the young leaves off the tea shoots." 
