December, '13] WOLCOTT: WEST INDIAN AND DEMERARAN NOTES 455 



some of these specimens of its injury in the laboratory, Mr. Urich 

 found a scale insect abundant in the tunnels of the termites. 



Although in most respects Barbados is strange and different from 

 Trinidad and Demerara, most of the insect pests are anything but 

 unfamiliar. True, the larger moth borer is not found, nor the frog- 

 hopper, but the small, stunted, untrashed canes contain an enormous 

 amount of Diatrcea injury. Both kinds of the sugar-cane mealy bugs, 

 Pseudococciis calceolaria; Mask., and P. sacchari Ckll., are abundant 

 and with them are almost invariably found the larvse of a lady beetle. 

 At the time I was there, the sooty mold on the leaves caused by 

 fungous growths on the honey dew secreted by the sugar-cane leaf- 

 hopper, Delphax saccharivora Westw., and the fluffy white masses 

 indicating the position of the egg-masses in the leaves, were most 

 noticeable. The weevil stalk borer, Metamasius hemipterus Linn., 

 is also abundant, as thirty larvse were taken from a single stalk of cane. 



With the exception of DiatrcBa all these are minor pests in comparison 

 with the injury produced by the weevil root borer, Diaprepes abbre- 

 viatus Linn. This is by far the most serious pest here. One can pull 

 up with but slight exertion half-grown stalks of cane, which have 

 been stunted and, in most instances, killed by it. The injury caused 

 by this weevil in Barbados is more serious than that due to Lachno- 

 sterna grubs in Porto Rico, as the stalks are attacked when only half- 

 grown. Manj^ of the small roots are eaten and the center chewed 

 out of the main tap root of the cane. It is very seldom that the 

 cane plant has sufficient roots left to make any new growth after the 

 grubs have destroyed the tap root, and the plant is then practically 

 dead. • When the ground around the stool is dug over, several grubs 

 are found at a depth of one to three feet. When the cane crop is 

 removed from the field, the partly grown grubs do not die, but burrow 

 down to a depth of several feet where they await the planting of the 

 next crop. Mr. No well had a grub remain alive for over ten months 

 in a cell of earth in a petri-dish kept in the laboratory, and the grub 

 seemed as healthy and active at the end of that time as when first 

 dug up. . . . No effective method of control is known, but the 

 numbers of the grubs can be considerably reduced by hand picking 

 of the adults. The adult weevils collect in large numbers on corn 

 and sorghum to feed, and there they may be readily captured by boys. 



The injury by Diatrcea in Barbados seems all the more severe be- 

 cause those varieties of cane are grown which have a small stalk and a 

 high percentage of sugar. Although there were probably not so many 

 tunnels in a single stalk as in Demerara, the total amount of injury 

 to the cane seemed to be greater. It was stated that injury by Di- 

 atrcea had been particularly severe this year, but it must be considerable 



