Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/487

1837.] is supposed to eat the roots of the rice plants, but its prey more especially is said to be the stalk and juices of the plant; for obtaining the latter of which it cuts the plants at the joints, after which the ear whitens without filling. The natives attribute the drying up of the ear and plant, to the drinking of its milk (sap), by the grub, which prevents the due formation of a full sized grain. The visitation of locust flights is the only remaining evil to be contended with by the cultivators from the insect world. There have been three annual but trivial visitations of these destructive animals within the last five years. They arrived on these occasions in May, and remained four or five days each time. Whence they came or whither they went, could not be ascertained. The natives here say they come from the plains and from the west. The Newars indemnify their losses by the locusts by collecting them in large quantities and eating them. They remove the wings and either fry or make curry of them, and consider them very good. I have seen them dressed, and tasted the dish, but cannot praise its taste or flavour. The fruit trees of the valley gardens, are the prey of a most formidable and destructive species of grub. It is about an inch and a half long, sometimes bluish coloured, sometimes yellow; it makes its attacks on the roots as well as the stems of the apple, pear, plum, and apricot trees, drilling a hole like a gimlet right into their substance, where apparently revelling on their sap, and completes their ruin as fruit bearers, and often destroys their lives. When, this animal makes its entrance into the stem from without and above ground, it leaves a round hole fit to receive a common pea, and sends out behind it small grains the colour of the tree wood, which on handling crumble into the finest powder.

The appearance of these grains and their dry sapless structure induce the belief that they have been passed from the animal per anum. The