329 



CADAMUSTUSTYPICUS— A MINOR COCONUT 

 PEST. 



In August last, Mr. J. H. (ieoiLiit- of the DiiRlings-Selama Coconut 

 Company, sent to the Botanic Gardens specimens of a "white fly" 

 found feeding in numbers on the juices of coconut leaves at Matang 

 Kubu in the Bindings. This insect was sent to the Imperial Bureau 

 of Entomology, at the British Mu?eum of Natural History and a 

 reply received from Mr. G. A. K. Marshall, the Director, to the effect 

 that the insect is " Cndarmistus typicus. Distant, which was originally 

 described from Ceylon, where it was found to attack Cardamons and 

 Bananas." Mr. Marshall adds that it has recently been received 

 from the Philippine islands. 



Cadamustiis typicus is a Tingid flv of small size with the wings 

 beautifully laced and the body curiously shajied. 



A VERY DESTRUCTIVE FLASH OF 

 LIGHTNING. 



In the night of January lOth— Ilth, 1914, a grove of coconuts 

 on the coast near Bedok, east of Singapore, was struck by lightning, 

 and the number of trees which died at once or slowly over the months 

 which followed amounted to one hundred and four. 



The case in recorded on account of the extent of the damage, 

 and of the fact that the cause of the death of the trees is in this case 

 indisputable. This usually is not the case when a malay ascribes 

 the death of a coconut palm to lightning. 



I. H. BURKILL. 



BORROWINGS FROM NEW BOOKS. 



Culture et Exploitation du Caoutchouc au B/rsil, b} O. Labroy and 

 V. Cayla, Paris, 1913, pp. 1-233. 



This book is a report to the Government of Brazil upon the 

 conditions under which rubber is produced in that country at 

 present and the existing facilitities for planting agriculturally viewed. 

 It does not cover the whole ground of rubber-production in Brazil, 

 but for certain regions only; and much of the book is intended to 

 teach the adoption of planting as practiced in Malaya. But there 

 are many interesting observations scattered through its pages, some 

 of real importance to Malaya. The authors (p. 30) say that Hevea 

 brasiliensis shows considerable variability in the Amazon basin 



