84 AGROTIS YPSILON. 


often increase in immense numbers and do extensive damage.! 
The injury is committed by the larve gnawing off the plants 
close to the ground and feeding upon them. They are exceed- 
ingly wasteful in their methods since they will often gnaw off one 
or more you ng plants and then drag them a portion of the way 
to their burrows and, dropping them, attack fresh ones. The 
caterpillar’s presence can often be detected by the presence on 
the surface of the soil of these cut-through and withering young 
seedlings, whilst others, or portions of their leaves and stems, 
are visible, protruding from the openings of the insect’s burrows. 
The larvae are nocturnal feeders and rest during the day in 
their burrows in the ground. In dull weather they may be 
found on the surface feeding by day as well as night. 
Mr. B. O. Coventry thus describes the attack at Gora Gali :— 
“During the summer months of 1900, it was noticed that a considerable 
number of deodar seedlings from seed shown in December 1899, had 
withered in the nurseries at Gora Gali in the Rawalpindi Division. It was 
found that the withered seedlings had been cut through close to the ground 
and the upper portion dragged down in to the soil.” 
At a nursery inthe Kalela forest, Simla division, I found 
young deodar seedlings being attacked in a similar manner at 
the end of May, and the pest was also destroying seedlings in 
the forest. Later on, when with Mr. E.M Coventry, we 
ound the caterpillars in a nursery in the Nagkela reserve 
(Kotgarh, Simla division), and also eating seedlings put out or 
sown in patches in the forest. There can be no doubt that 
Agrotis ypstion commits very considerable damage yearly 
amongst deodar seedlings, checking very appreciably the young 
growth in those areas in which it has obtained the upperhand. 
Protection and Remedies. 
There are several remedies which will be found effectual 
in getting rid of this pest from nurseries, etc :—= 
1. Before the young seedlings have come up place bun- 
dles of any succulent crop plant which may be grow- 
ing in the neighbourhood (in America cabbage, 


? Opium and other crops have been reported as suffering very heavily 
{rom the pest, occasionally scores of acres being as effectively swept clean 
as if a swarm of locusts had been over the area. 
