142 



the loth May I resolved to find out what this worm was, and 

 examining a sucker in a backwarrl state, I discovered traces of a 

 boring insect which had entered at the base of the sucker and 

 almost on a level with the soil. It had bored upwards and 

 almost into the heart of the plant, and the channels it had made 

 were filled with decomposed vegetable matter. 1 did not succeed 

 in finding the insect, but traces of its recent presence were 

 unmistakeable. A few days after this, I inspected another plant 

 in a condition similar to the last one. Again I was unsuccessful 

 in discovering the cufprit, for it had eviden*^ly bored through 

 the root stock and emerged from the plant. On a more recent 

 occasion I examined another affected plant and this time was 

 successful in capturing a spt'cimen of the borer. I found 

 it was the larva of some lepidopterous insect, about 3 inches 

 long and about f of an inch in diameter. Its head was light 

 brown, with darker brown mandibles, and its Vjody was whitish 

 with a transparent skin. Its presence in the plant is readily 

 indicated in the early stages v/f its attack by an exudation of a 

 transparent mucilaginous fiuid from the hole through which it 

 effects an entrance. The only cure I have tried is to destroy the 

 insect and cut out the affected part when the enemy makes its 

 first attack, but nothing can save a plant which has b^en affecttd 

 for some time. On the lUth July, 1892, I found a caterpillar 

 boring into a banana sucker; on the l-'^th August it spun a 

 cocoon and changed into a mahogany brown chrysalis, and on the 

 24:th September a fine specimen of the Castnia licus emerged. 

 This moth flies in the day and I have uften caught it in banana 

 patches, but I little dreamt that it did such harm to the plants 

 in its earlier stages. A short time after I observed one of the.'ie 

 moths depositing its eggs. It selected the base of a banana 

 sucker for this purpose, and laid a single egg just inside a dry 

 and withered leaf-stalk. The local name of this moth is cane- 

 •ucker. 



17th Novr., 1892. 



A FEW NOTES ON ALLIGATOR SiiOOTING 

 IN TRINIDAD. 



Bt Syl. Devenish Esq., M.A., 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen, 



I have promised you, with your kind permission, to relate 

 U< on .soiur anecdotes on alligator shouting in Trinidad. 



The following are a few plain remimscences of an old 



