348 



may be conveyors of diseases. The utmost care should also be taken 

 if canes are imported. On account of their method of feeding, leaf- 

 hoppers and other Rhynchota are the insects most liable to convey 

 disease. 



Williams (F. X.). Notes on some Enemies of the Nut Grass in the 

 Philippines. — Hawaiian Planters' Record, Honolulu, xxvi, no. 2, 

 April 1922, pp. 95-97. 



The most obnoxious of tropical sedges, Cy perns rotundns (nut grass), 

 is little affected by its enemies, which in the Philippines include one or 

 two species of fungus [Puccinea), a mealy-bug, a weevil [Athesapeuta], 

 and two or three species of Lepidopterous larvae. 



The mealy-bug is a small species that lives on or near the base of 

 the leaf-sheaths and on the bulbous portion below the ground. Locally 

 it may be quite abundant. In November 1920, during heavy rains, 

 few individuals were found on the bulb, but in June and July all were 

 at the base of the plant and many were young. A very similar mealy- 

 bug was found at the base of the stems of Iniperata cylindrica var. 

 koenigii among grasses mixed with nut grass. The weevil is more 

 plentiful than the moth borers, though none are abundant. The 

 larvae work into the bulb from above and kill the plant. They pupate 

 in the bulb, and the observations were made in November and 

 December. 



There appear to be two species of Tortricid moths, the habits of 

 which are similar to those of the weevil. They are much smaller 

 than Nacoleia (Omiodes) accepta (sugar-cane leaf-roller) of Hawaii. 

 Adults were reared from larvae, but none from egg to adult. What 

 the author considers are the eggs of one of these species are laid in a 

 line on the leaves and slightly overlap. On hatching, the larva embeds 

 itself in the tissue, working downwards and eventually tunnelling 

 the axis as far as the bulb. Pupation occurs in the stem. A small 

 Braconid, resembling an Apanteles, attacks the caterpillar and spins 

 a cocoon near it. 



A small Tineid moth was reared in a jar containing nut grass, but 

 its early stages were not observed. No Coccids of the genus Antonina, 

 which occur on nut grass in Australia, were found. 



It is not considered that the subject has been sufficiently studied 

 to enable a decision to be made as to introducing these enemies into 

 Hawaii, 



Wheeler (W. M.). A Study of some Social Beetles in British Guiana 

 and of their Relations to the Ant-plant Tachigalia. — Zoologica, 



New York, iii, no. 3, 24th December 1921, pp. 35-126, 12 figs., 



5 plates. [Received 1st May 1922.] 

 The complicated inter-relationship of the numerous insects and 

 their parasites and satellites infesting the young shoots and leaves, 

 especially the leaf petioles, of Tachigalia is discussed. The insects 

 are divided into two series, those that use the plants as dwellings 

 and a source of food, comprising ants, social beetles and Coccids, 

 which are the most important and without exception belong to a single 

 species, Psendococcns hronieliae, Bch., and those that use them as 

 hiding places, etc., such as miscellaneous Arthropods and ants. The 

 latter's relations are of five kinds, defoliators, attendants of Homoptera, 

 inquilines, thief ants, which attack the larvae of the social beetles 

 and small colonies of the inquilines, and ants that are definitely attached 

 to the Tachigalia as their host-tree. 



