146 
and contains a dark mass of material, consisting of the partly digested cellulose 
fibers of the plant upon which the insect has fed. The anal opening occurs as a 
transverse slit at the extremity of the body. (PI. 1V, fig. 1.) 
Differences of opinion appear to have existed with reference to the 
destructiveness of the grub of Oryctes. Blandford says: 
fae 
They are harmless, and live in heaps of rotting vegetable matter or the 
manure-like inside of decayed palm trees. 
Both Mr. Schultze and I have discovered them in large numbers in coco- 
nut trees in which the “manure-like” material inside the trunks gave every 
evidence of having been made by the grubs themselves. One tree, felled 
in the town of Magdalena, Laguna Province, while still alive and to 
casual observation fairly healthy, was found to have an inverted cone eaten 
out at the crown, as shown by Plate III, fig. 1. This contained seven of 
the grubs of Oryctes rhinoceros L. buried in the frass. There was a tun- 
nel, 3 centimeters in diameter, extending down from the apex of the cone 
for a distance of 90 centimeters through the heart of the tree, and at the 
bottom of this tunnel was a full-grown grub, which to all appearances had 
eaten its way to this point. Mr. Schultze observed in Pagsanjan a tree 
(Pl. IL) 5 meters high, the whole of the interior of which had been eaten 
out from its top to within a half meter of the ground, leaving a shell with 
a wall from 15 to 20 centimeters in thickness. Within this, at the lower 
part, was a mixture of water and decayed matter 50 centimeters deep, 
indicating that the work of Oryctes and the Asiatic palm weevil, together 
with infiltration from the top, had been continuing for a considerable 
period of time. Within this rotting mass and at intervals up to the crown 
of the tree were found the fiber cocoons of O. rhinoceros 1.., while from 
75 to 100 larve of all sizes, from 5 millimeters to the full-grown grub, 
were removed. The small number of weevils, the large number of Oryctes 
larve and pup, and the general appearance of the interior of the tree 
furnished conclusive proofs that the work was that of the insect in ques- 
tion. Leaving these points aside and reasoning from the anatomy of the 
larva alone, it is evident that it could work in the wood of coconut with 
great ease, since it is in every way fitted for burrowing there. If it lives 
only in manure heaps or in decaying matter, it would appear that there 
would be no necessity for such well-developed and powerful mandibles, 
nor would the head have to be of such hard material. It is true that these 
grubs are always encountered in the presence of decayed matter, either in 
the tree or in manure and other vegetable heaps, but, when found in the 
tree, it is probable that the decaying material is a result and not the cause 
of their presence. It is also true that we never cut into a tree until it 
shows unmistakable signs of insect attack or disease, and therefore do not 
see the work of the beetle at its incipiency. I have seen larve one-quarter 
grown removed from the burrows made by the adults in small coconut 
trees, the leaves of which were pulled apart; and I have also observed the 
