122 On the Coffee-borer 



frequently strike off into branches. The full grown 

 Borer or larva is generally from three- qviarters to one 

 inch in length, and about the diameter of a quill at 

 the head. The body is whitish, soft, ringed, destitute 

 of feet, thickest in front, and tapers gradually toward 

 the blunt posterior extremity. The head is harder than 

 the body, and furnished with very powerful mandibles. 

 When the larva has completed its term of existence, 

 during the whole of which its entire energy is expended 

 on feeding, it approaches the surface of the stem, and, 

 passing into a state of inactivity, becomes a pupa. How 

 long it remains in this state is doubtful, and all that we 

 know with certainty is that the imago is produced in a 

 cavern prepared for it by the larva in the sapwood, or 

 immediately under the bark, and that, having got 

 through the process of exuviation, it cuts its way out in 

 the shape of a perfect beetle. Instead of living in a dark 

 hermetically- closed tunnel, it now exists in light and air, 

 soaring on wing, or jumping with its powerful legs. It 

 is at this time about half an inch in length, or some- 

 times a little more. The head is small, depressed, and 

 furnished with robust mandibles, tapering antennae, and 

 large brilliant reniform eyes. The elytra are black, and 

 each is marked with three oblique greenish bands, meet- 

 ing in pairs at their inner extremities when the wing-cases 

 are folded, and by a diagonal one at the upper end. Q^'he 

 hind-legs are long and powerful, and the basal joints of 

 their tarsi are furnished beneath with brush-like appen- 

 dages. The insect belongs to the tetramerous family of 

 Coleoptera or beetles, and "will doubtless be soon in the 

 hands of English Entomologists, able to identify it, and 

 give a full account of its natural history. We have as 

 yet no reliable information regarding the periods of the 

 year at which the insect is to be found in its various 

 stages of development. In the trees examined by me 

 in September, I found only larvae. Probably the beetle 

 or perfect insect emerges in the dry season, or earlier 

 months of the year, as it would hardly be possible for it 

 to live during the heavy rains of the monsoon. The 

 Borer does not attack dead stems. 



It will be observed that, through the whole of this 

 letter, I have endeavoured to show that the coffee-plant in 

 Coorg has been subjected to various debilitating influ- 

 ences, which have predisposed it to disease, and I now 

 wish to say that I look upon the Borer as akin to an 

 epidemic. Change in the climate, impoverished soil, and 



