448 
LKPIDOPTERA. 
Spodoptera mauritia , Boisd., is a grey and black moth with a blotch 
of white on the forewing, distinguished by the immense tufts of hair on 
the forelegs of the male. The larva feeds on rice, grasses and millets’ 
appearing sometimes in great abundance in the rains and soon after. 
It is often obtainable on dubh grass (Cynodon dactylon) lawns, with other 
noctuid larvae. Berresa turpis, Wlk., is a smaller dark-coloured moth, 
most easily recognised by the vesicle in the cell of the male forewing, 
covered by a tuft of scales below ; it is common at the close of the rains. 
Amyna selenampha, Guen., and A. octo , Guen., are deep brown, with 
slender upturned palpi and tapering abdomen, found under trees. The 
larva of the latter has been reared on sweet potato, a green larva with 
two black crescents on the thorax above. The former is recorded by 
Green as a serious pest to the Croton Oil plant in Ceylon. 
Callopistria recurvata, Mo., is the only common species of the number 
found in India ; the male has curiously curved antennae with three 
spatulate hairs at the curve, the legs also densely clothed with long 
hair. 
Caradrina is a genus of many species, of which one is abundant 
and destructive. This is the cosmopolitan C. exigua, Hubn., a very 
widely distributed species, destructive to a number of crops but partic¬ 
ularly to indigo in its young stage. ( See Agric. Journ., India, Yol. I, 
pt. IV, for a full account.) This moth is like a small Euxoa segetis, but 
has no spines on the legs. Caradrina pecten, Guen., was reared from 
larvae found in the dubh grass on a lawn and is apparently common. Th e 
larva is brown and orange with black stripes, the pupa, as usual, in the 
soil. 
Nonagria uniformis, Ddgn. (Plate XXXVII, fig. 7), has been the 
subject of much inquiry, since it is the important stem-borer of wheat 
in the cold weather; it then attacks sugar-cane and injures the young 
shoots and canes ; it has been reared in maize, guinea grass and juar, and, 
finally, it severely attacks rice. The pink caterpillar is a borer, not feed¬ 
ing in the open. The moth is dry-grass colour ; the species is not recorded 
in the Fauna of India, but was described since, and the species N . in- 
ferens was probably confused with this, since the specimens in the Indian 
Museum and the Pusa collection, from which it wa s described, are all 
stated by Mr. Dudgeon to be his species, N. uniformis , 
