

AGROTIS YPSILON, 83 

of Bengal. This very important point requires further observa- 
tion. From the above it will become evident that the different 
generations have generally, if not always, different host plants. 
In its cold weather generation in the plains the cut worm is 
known to feed on opium plants. Later on in the rainy season 
legumes and pulses replace the opium in the fields and the 
later generation adapts itself to the changed food plant and feeds 
upon these. Inthe case of the colder climate of the North-West 
Himalayas the number of generations will be reduced. The 
insects here pass the winter months probably as half-grown larva, 
hibernating under stems or logs or buried beneath the surface 
of the soil. In May they re-commence feeding, and they have 
been found at work in young deodar nurseries from the third 
week in May onwards through June into July, and probably 
pupate somewhere about the time the monsoon bursts over 
the hills. Mr. B. O. Coventry obtained pupz at Gora Gali 
(Rawalpindi division) about the middle of july from which a 
moth emerged in the middle of October, These October 
moths, I think, will be found to lay eggs at once which hatch 
into the young larvz, and these latter hibernate through the 
winter. If this proves to be correct, it will be found that in the 
colder climate of the hills, as in the colder portions of other 
parts of the world, 4. ypsz/on passes through but one genera- 
tion in the year. 
Localities from which reported. 
Hampson gives this insect’s habitat as “ universally distri- 
buted all over the world with the exception of South America.” 
It has been reported for many years as destructive to crops in. 
various parts of India. In 1900 Mr. B. O. Coventry reported 
it as damaging young deodar seedlings in the Gora Gali 
nursery in the Rawalpindi division, Punjab, and I found larve 
feeding in the same way in igor (May to July) in nurseries 
of deodar in the Simla and Bashahr divisions of the same 
province. 
Relations to the Forest. 
Cut worms are serious pests to young vegetation of all kinds, 
being more especially destructive in dry seasons when they 
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