90 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



tree, we found that during the night this insect had bored a 

 large hole outwards, and had come out of the bark from the 



position in which we first discovered her It is doubtful 



whether the beetles will fly into the fire, though they will 

 come round it in great numbers, in which case coolies with 



nets or branches of trees might kill a great many Can 



we introduce or encourage the breed of any animals inimical 

 to insect life ? Can the ornithologist be of any service here ? 

 Those birds which live chiefly in trees and hedges, if en- 

 couraged and protected on an estate, might prove formidable 

 enemies to the borer. Flocks of guinea-fowls would kill a 

 large number of insects; .... they are mostly attached to 

 white ants and grubs, but this borer is a very diminutive 

 insect considering his powers of destruction, and 1 have no 



doubt the guinea-fowl would take to him amazingly Is 



it the case that, after two or more seasons of failure in the 

 average amount of rain, the coffee trees become to a certain 

 extent sapless, and offer an easy prey to ligniperdous insects 

 of all kinds ? I have stated before that this is open to 

 question, but it has been asserted that such is the case, and 

 that when the trees are luxuriant, and from constant showers 

 in seasonable and heavy monsoons they have become in a 

 high state of cultivation and are full of sap, the borer cannot 

 make so much way in his depredations ; he is, in fact, 

 bothered (so to speak) by too much moisture in the wood. 

 There are doubtless various kinds of borers, some of which 

 have actually attacked this year the sandal-wood, whose 

 scent it was supposed would scare the hungriest larvae ; some 

 again have attacked dried-up and utterly sapless trunks, 

 in whose fibrous elements not a particle of nourishment 



could be supposed to dwell It is important to discover 



if a juicy or a sapless coffee bush is selected by the borer, 

 and, if so, by what borer. .... I believe that the white or 

 red borer was originally indiscriminate in his attacks, either 

 in shade or the open. I believe that the spread of insects 

 has greatly increased by the absence of shelter for the birds 

 of the forest." .... 



[I have been favoured by Mr. Lee, of ' Land and Water,' 

 with specimens of the borer in its perfect state, and find it to 

 be a Clytus, very nearly allied to our Clytus Arietis. I ob- 

 serve that Mr. Smith thinks it to be the Xylotrechus quadripes 



