Abstract

Athalia proxima Klug., the mustard saw fly causes extensive damage to the Cruciferous crops, the larvae of which make irregular holes in the leaves and skeletonise them. Besides feeding on leaves, the female does indirect damage by injuring leaf tissues while inserting the eggs with her saw like ovipositor. Sometimes due to severe infestation resowing becomes a necessary event. The distribution of the pest has been reported from U. S. A. (Klug, 1816), East Indies (Cameron, 1876), Pakistan (Lefroy, 1907), Jahre (Marstatt, 1913), Malaya (Susainathan, 1924), Rangoon, Burma and Sumatra (Ghosh, 1924), and Formosa (Benson, 1932). In India this insect has been noted in erstwhile Bombay State and Bengal as early as 1894 by Middleton. Later on it was recorded from Assam (Mc Swiney, 1919), Bihar (Dutt, 1919), Hilly districts of South India (Ayyar, 1932), Delhi (Isaac, 1934), Bengal (Hedayetullah, 1939), Uttar Pradesh (Lal, 1946), Punjab and Pepsu, Madhya Pradesh (Singh, 1965), Nagpur, Wardha and Amraoti (now in Maharashtra) (Gupta and Joshi, 1955), Mysore (Usman and Pattarudriah, 1955) and Rajasthan (Shriwastava and Sharma, 1965).

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