309 



that it was recognised as a pest of importance. '^ Diaprepes 

 ahhreviatus had been for many years a well-known insect in its 

 adult condition. It was called locally the lady-bird, and seems 

 to have been very generally familiar to the children, who captured 

 it, admiring its bright colours of varying shades of green, orange- 

 yellow, and black, and then sent it on its way to the words of 

 the old couplet, " Lady-bird, lady-bird, ñy away home," etc. 

 As indicating the increase in numbers which this insect has 

 shown, it may be stated that in June and July 191 1 some 

 twenty to twenty-five thousand of the adult beetles were cap- 

 tured on one estate, where the area seriously attacked by the 

 root-boring grubs was probably not more than 40 or 50 acres 

 in extent, and that in the immediate neighbourhood the collec- 

 tions on four or five estates (some 600 to 800 acres) totalled some- 

 thing hke sixty thousand. At the end of June and the beginning 

 of July 1912, these insects were making their appearance again 

 and were being captured in considerable numbers. The manner 

 of the attack of these insects is rather interesting. The eggs 

 have not been found in the field, but from observation made 

 on insects in captivity it is believed that the eggs are laid upon 

 the leaves of the cane or other plants, upon the roots of which 

 the grubs will feed. As the eggs hatch, the grubs drop to the 

 ground and immediately make their way into the soil, where 

 it is believed that for several months they feed upon very small 

 roots. Later, the nearly full-grown grubs tunnel into the under- 

 ground portions of the stem of the sugar-cane, completely eating 

 out the interior, and, in the case of severe attack, the supply 

 of moisture from the fibrous roots to the above-ground portions 

 of the plant is entirely cut off. It happens that this aspect of 

 the attack occurs just at the season of year when the canes are 

 ripening, and when the rains are ceasing, so that, with the injury 

 to the circulation of the plant, the demands for moisture made 

 by the ripening canes, and the absence of rain, the attack by 

 root borer becomes apparent with a suddenness that is some- 

 what appalling. 



Attacks of a root borer have been observed in a few instances 

 in St. Kitts, and in one or, possibly, two instances in Antigua. 

 These are known only from the appearance, in underground 

 portions of the cane, of grubs similar in aj)j)earance to the grubs 



