36 [February, 



mealies ? Tliere is a great heap of the latter, still in the cob, lying in the same 

 room. There is also a pale maggotty-looking creature destroying the mealie plants, 

 beginning at the roots and eating upwards. I am trying to rear some. These larviE 

 are of ordinary sliape, smooth and plump." 



December 20th. — " I must try to catch the mail with my mealie-moths, and 

 the cobs, which will tell their own tale, empty chrysalis skins, and their burrows. 

 The moths got to the inside of the window, night after night, so I examined the 

 heap of dried mealies stored on the floor of the room. Here I found several moths 

 upon the cobs which had no stalks attached ; so breaking up a lo(., found a living 

 grub and an empty case. I believe that they work their way right up from the 

 root inside the stem, for we found the same sort of larvae in roots of fresh mealie- 

 plants, underground, this year." 



January .30th, 1902. — " Now we have been investigating the damaged mealie 

 stalks in the ' lands ' (farm-lands). They just wither off, only a few plants escaping. 

 We took a knife, and after pulling up a root, dissected it at our leisure. In one 

 stalk I found seven chrysalides, and a living larva at the top. I found that there 

 was usually a hole in the side of the stem for each chrysalis, so that the moth could 

 at once escape. Some larva) that we found were large, some small ; one or two in, 

 or on, the cobs, eating the grains, but most of them iiij the stem eating the pith 

 only. When in the cob they seem to eat a few mealie-corns to clear their way, but 

 prefer to burrow into the interior. I noticed that all the holes were now above the 

 roots, often in the first joint above ! bnt earlier in the year we found them in the 

 bottom prongs of the roots." 



March 5th. — " It has done shocking damage this year ; the maize (mealie) is 

 the food of these )ieople ; most of them live upon it and milk." 



March 14th. — " There is a new development of the maize-pest ! There are 

 evidently two broods this season. The first fed in December, and the moths were 

 out in about three weeks. Now, in the middle of March, there is an amazing 

 number of young larva) spoiling whole ' lands ' of the late crop. These feed at the 

 fop of the plant, just under the male blossom, so that it often drops off or may be 

 pulled out, rotten as well as worm-eaten. These certainly feed downwards, but 

 whether they then enter the young cob I have not yet ascertained. All feed in the 

 pith or on the corns outside the cob, worming a pattern down till they get inside 

 the stem. Thus the young larvae which I am now finding nestle at the bottom of 

 the chaffy-looking spike of blossom, and eat a tiny hole down into the next joint. 

 The leaves, which are very tough, are never eaten, but the whole plant generally 

 tui'ns yellow and perishes. I think that the nearly full-grown larva enters the stem 

 as near to the base as it can, and eats upward, forming a cavity for pupation, 

 and making a hole from which the moth may emerge. In the later crop most of 

 the damage is done near the top of the plant. If attacked very early the whole 

 plant dies off, if later the mealie ear is stunted and poor. The whole ' land ' pro- 

 claims the presence of the pest by the unhealthy, faded, tinge of the jilants. It 

 must be in the later brood that pupation takes place in the cob." 



April. — " 1 hear from a trader living nearer to the coast that they are free from 

 this mealie-pest ; he thinks that tlic creature is found more in the valleys. I have 

 been wondering whethei", if in the second brood, the tops of the infected plants 



