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injured as to prevent the bearing of nuts. The appearance of 
the newer mutilated leaves serves to indicate when and where 
the beetle is prevalent. The larvae or grubs are not injurious 
but feed in dead and rotting stumps and logs. 
Searching out these grubs and destroying them is the chief 
control measure being practiced. It seems to be quite effec- 
tive when persistently and thoroughly carried out. One day 
per week is designated as “beetle day,’ on which the natives 
are required to make special search for these grubs. Many 
thousands of them are thus found by chopping up old logs and 
stumps. Their eggs are also found in this way, and a few of 
the beetles themselves, all of which are destroyed. Much benefit 
is derived in this way, but the work would be greatly facilitated 
if the coconut groves were kept free of the native jungle of 
brush and vines that has such a tendency of rapidly choking 
up the space beneath the coconut trees. On account of this 
undergrowth there is great difficulty in finding the breeding 
places of the beetles and many will escape detection and thus 
enough grubs go through to maturity to keep the beetle con- 
tinuously going. 
Rhabdocnemis obscura (Boisd.). 
The sugar-cane borer is found quite commonly in coconut 
trees. The beetles may be found behind the bases of the leaves 
where they can readily hide among the fibrous matter, but 
the grubs were usually found in the bases of the leafstalks, and 
mostly in those that had been cut off, leaving a stub remaining 
on the tree. These cut-off ends provide a place where the adult 
beetles could conveniently lay their eggs, which accounts for 
the grubs being more often found in such positions. On 
account of this habit of feeding in these places, this weevil is 
not of important injury to the coconut trees. 
Diocalandra taitensis (Guer.). 
The Tahiti coconut weevil was found quite abundantly in 
places. It is much smaller than the sugar-cane borer. Its 
larvae feed in the edges of the lower part of the leaf stalk, and 
as it is the older leaves that are most often attacked, they are 
not significantly injurious to the trees. They, too, are likely to 
be more abundant in stubs of cut-off leaves. 
