3o8 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



attacking the canes. ^ In studying these insects, many of 

 them are found to be severely checked by parasites. As 

 an example let us consider the " moth-borer ". Two species 

 of minute egg-destroying Hynienoptcra have been described 

 from Java — Chaetosticha ?iana and Cej'apliron bejieficiens} 

 Attention had previously been drawn to the fact that, in the 

 West Indies, but for the presence of a minute undescribed 

 species of Trichoganima (?) destroying the moth-borers' 

 eggs, it would be next to impossible to grow the sugar- 

 cane.^ A species of Mikrogaster and a Ckalcid assist in 

 keeping down the moth-borer in New South Wales, 

 attacking respectively the living caterpillar and the pupa.* 

 Lastly, a fungus, recently described as Isaria Barberi^ has 

 been met with attacking the caterpillars of Diatraea Sac- 

 charalis in the West Indies ; and a similar form of " vege- 

 table caterpillar" has been noted in Java.^ 



Wherever diligent search is made plenty of new species 

 are forthcoming ; and it is probable that additional forms 

 of disease will be described when the cane-fields of Fiji, 

 Cuba and the Sandwich Islands are more carefully studied. 

 The history of the first observation of the '" shot-borer," 

 xyleboriis pcrforans"' and the "rind fungus," Trichosphaeria 

 Saccharic in the West Indies favours this assumption, in 

 that when once attention was drawn to these diseases they 

 were speedily found to exist over wide areas. 



12. In view of these wide-spread disease phenemona it 

 has been asserted that the cane industry is in danger of 

 being wiped out from natural causes, indepenciently of the 

 beet competition ; and that disease is much more prevalent 

 than ever before. Certainly the stricken canes are visible 

 enough. But it may well be that, in the former days of 

 good prices, the planter could with equanimity leave the 

 loads of rotten and rat-eaten canes upon the fields, while 

 he cannot afford to lose a single cane to-day. We read 

 that the sugar crop in Antigua was 3382 hogsheads in 1779, 



^ See especially papers by Kobus and Zehntner. ^' Zehntner (2). 



•\ Barber (i), p. 148. * Oliff or Roebela, N.S.W. Appyelt. 



*Giard (i). ^ Kobus (i). " Blandford (i). 



^ Kew Bulletin, March, 1894. 



