88 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



upon the good and bad seasons all over the globe, when 

 1 consider how many luxuriant coffee estates have for so 

 many years succeeded in India, and moreover when I admit 

 the undoubted fact that the red borer has been known for 

 years on our estates and in Ceylon, I cannot regard the 

 extraordinary visitation of 1867 in any light but that of a 

 plague which has come upon us, and with due care and pre- 

 caution on our part will pass away Tlie borer was very 



destructive in 1859. His ravages in 1867 are certainly more 

 alarming, but 1 believe that although this insect may remain 

 more or less on the estates, such fatal ravages are not likely 

 to occur for many years. It is impossible to disguise the 

 damage already done, and doubtless this becomes a most 

 serious question, but I trust that many an estate may yet be 

 saved to its owners. I understand that some proprietors con- 

 template no further outlay, but purpose taking the coming 

 crop, whatever it may be, and then abandoning their pro- 

 perties It has been advanced by some persons who take 



a desponding view of this calamity that the coffee estates may 

 die out in the same manner as the vines have perished in 

 Madeira. I think we should dismiss any idea of this kind 

 from our minds altogether, as the cases are not analogous. 

 The vines, it is generally admitted, perished from a disease 

 of the trees themselves, and not from any insect. The theory 

 that the borer only attacks weakly trees (though supported by 

 a most eminent entomologist with regard to ligniperdous 

 insects) is, I believe, open to question in this case. Mr. Young, 

 the Chairman of the Carnatic Coffee Company, in writing from 

 personal inspection, declared that ' the finest trees are its 

 choice victims;' and I believe every planter who has seen the 

 borer in any numbers will bear me out in the assertion that 

 the insect is indiscriminate in its ravages. It is quite possible 

 that men who formed a different opinion on iheir own estates 

 were mistaken, and that the sickly appearance they observed 

 was in reality caused by the borer which had entered the year 



before unnoticed The trees which, on passing through 



an estate, the planter can perceive are showing signs of some- 

 thing wrong shovdd, in my opinion, be taken up, and nightly 



bonfires be lighted with a collection of them Some estates 



which liave had the borer for some three or four years are 

 nearly destroyed. If the affected trees had been burnt the 



