16 THECUBAREVIEW 



RAISING LIZARDS IN TRINIDAD TO SAVE 

 SUGAR CROPS 



Mr. R. R. Mole a well-known authority in reptiles and batrachians of the West Indies, 

 has contributed an interesting article to the West India Committee Circular, published in 

 London, on "Lizards and sugar," in which is described the very important use now being 

 made of lizards in Trinidad for the purpose of combating the froghoppers, whose ravages in 

 the sugar-cane plantations of Trinidad, and also in other West Indian Islands and on the 

 mainland of South America, have seriously affected the production of sugar. 



The froghoppers (Thomaspis sacharina), which are the chief pest to the sugar cane in the 

 West Indies, are indigenous to these islands. They were Kttle noticed until a few years ago, 

 the damage they did to the cane bemg called "bHght," but within recent years they have 

 increased by miUions. They owe their popular name to their abihty to make prodigious 

 leaps. They obtain their nourishment liy sucking the sap from the root and leaves of the 

 sugar cane. The young hoppers, which do most of t.he injury, frequent the roots of the cane, 

 while the old ones hve on the leaves, and on each plant in a badly infested cane piece there are 

 many thousands of these insects. 



Work of an American Mycologist. 



The Trinidad Board of Agriculture for some years has had in its employ an American 

 mycologist, Mr. J. B. Rorer, formerly with the Department of Agriculture at Washington, and 

 with Mr. Rorer has been associated a well-known West Indian etomologist, Mr. F. W. Urich. 

 It is due to the observations and efforts of these two scientists that Trinidad has now found a 

 practicable means of saving its sugar-cane crops from the frogliopper pest. 



Mr. Rorer observed that a fungus popularly called the "green muscardine" is peculiarly 

 fatal to the froghopper, while it does not afTect that creatures parasites, and natural enemies, 

 and he conceived the idea of cultivating the muscardine, not, as is usually done with such 

 things, in test tubes, but in large cabinets, producing myriads of spores which, by special dis- 

 tributing machines, are dusted over the cane fields. On the other hand, Mr. Urich had noted 

 that in the badly infested cane fields there was an almost total absence of hzards, which swarm 

 on most liealthy sugar plantations, while frogs and toads were also comparatively rare. All 

 three creatures feed freely on froghoppers. This condition of things he attributed to the 

 presence of the mongcos (Herpestes mungo), a Uttle carnivore which many years ago was brought 

 from India to the West Indies to kill ofT the rats and snakes. At a considerably later date 

 the mongoos found its way to Trinidad. Wherever the mongoos were plentiful the lizards 

 were absent and the froghoppers flourished. 



Campaign of Extermination} — A "Lizard Farm" Started. 



The mycologist and the entomohgist joined forces and about four years ago induced one 

 of t}ie principal planters to adopt t)ieir methods on a badly infested property. A vigorous ex- 

 termination campaign was started against the mongoos, and at considerable expense "green 

 muscardine" was cultivated and t)ie fields dusted with the spores. Next, some thousands of 

 ground lizards were olitained from other parts of the island, mostly from locaUties near the 

 capital (Port of Spain), where the mongoos are not so numerous, and these were liberated in 

 the cane fields, with the result that the froghoppers have almost entirely disappeared from the 

 estate so treated, the canes are flourishing, and the sugar yield has largely increased in quantity 

 and improved in quahty. 



It was proved that t}ie fimgus destroyed the adult hoppers and that the Hzards were de- 

 vouring huge nxmibers of both the hopper nymphs and imagos, and so successfid were these 

 measures th-at the management of another large block of estates in the center of the island has 

 estabUshed quite a big muscardine cultivation, and, in addition has founded a veritable lizard 

 farm where the Ameiva surinamensis (scientific name of the Hzard) is actually bred. Sand 

 bank's for hzards to burrow in and wherein to lay their eggs, have been provided; water has 

 been supplied and food fiu-nished in an area 60 by 30 feet, which has been made proof against 

 the incursions of the predatory birds and mammals that make the lizards an article of their 



