666 



action of the poison. There is evidence that the poison does not 

 circulate in the sap, but that it only kills the plant cells with which it 

 comes in contact. According to Franceschini, silkworms fed on 

 leaves taken from a mulberry treated with potassium cyanide were 

 quite unaffected. 



W. N[owell]. The Internal Disease of Cotton Bolls. — Agric. Neivs, 

 Barbados, xiv, ko. Md, 17th July 1915, pp. 238-239. 



The internal disease of cotton-bolls may be connected with the 

 presence of cotton stainers. While staining may be initiated by 

 matter issuing from punctures in the young seeds made by the insects, 

 it depends for its extension on infection with an organism, which, 

 in the majority of cases, appears to be a specific fungus, and in others 

 bacteria or other fungi. 



The Shot-hole Borer of Tea. — Trop. Agric, Peradeniya, xlv, no. 1, 

 July 1915, pp. 55-59. 



According to Speyer, the adult female of Xyleborus (Anisandrus) 

 fornicatus, Eichh. (shot-hole borer of tea), having completed the 

 entrance gallery and the first spiral gallery, deposits from 2 to 5 eggs 

 in the second spiral — a gallery which is subject to infinite variation 

 in length and direction. When this gallery is completed and the eggs 

 deposited, borings of a different nature from those of the previous 

 ones are seen to be ejected through the entrance hole. These borings 

 are the result of the tearing away of the pith of the stem, and mark 

 the beginning of one of the longitudinal galleries, usually the one 

 which passes downwards through the pith. The time occupied in 

 making the second spiral in which the eggs are laid, and that which 

 elapses before beginning the first longitudinal pith gallery, is dependent 

 on the rate of the maturation and development of the egg in the body 

 of the parent. Should these periods be well advanced, the egg-gallery 

 Avill be short ; in abnormal cases, the longitudinal gallery is constructed 

 before the eggs are laid. From the time that the gallery is begun up 

 to the laying of the first mass of eggs, no male beetle enters the 

 gallery. 



As neither the larva nor the adult actually feeds upon any part of 

 the tea-plant, the use of sprays or chemical salts will give no result 

 in control. When boring into the stem, the female beetle does not 

 swallow the borings, but ejects them without their passing into any 

 part of the alimentary tract. The information gained concerning the 

 life-history of this insect has been obtained in two different ways. 

 In the first, glass tubing was fixed over shot-holes in tea plants, and 

 an apparatus devised to provide suitable ventilation without any 

 possibility of escape for emerging beetles or material. This complex 

 method can only be applied to a comparatively small number of 

 individual beetles and galleries, so that little knowledge can be gained 

 of the entrance and emergence of the beetles from the galleries, which is 

 the first piece of information essential to the determination of control 

 schemes. The second method consisted in the choosing of an area of 

 plantation which contained 256 tea plants, of which 91 were, or had 

 been, attacked on or before 24th April. Every branch attacked was 



