XX 



white borer has been in many plantations for several years, and that he goes on, 

 maturing or expiring, according to the weather. These dry seasons have enabled hira 

 to make a great stride in bis work of destruction, and the trees have become loaded 



with larvoe I advise the burning of all affected trees; and as it has, 



I believe, been almost universally admitted in Coorg and Mysore that shade is 

 beneficial, I sbould plant .shade in the vacancies instead of young coffee, which rarely 



succeeds with old plants The handling of trees for the removal of any 



eggs might be useful Fish-oil and soot are spoken of, to stop the trees 



with, and chloiide-of-lime water, or arsenic solution, or cyanide of potassium, to be 

 syringed into them. Of all preventive and remedial measures as yet proposed, 

 I consider the most valuable to be the plan of whitewashing the trees when good lime 

 can be procured. Fires should invariably be lighted at this season, because it appears 

 that the borer beetle escapes at night, and during this month (September). At the 

 same time it is probable the beetle may escape during the daytime also. It has the 

 power of boring its way out of the tree after it has changed from the pupa to the 

 perfect beetle, notwithstanding that it may have to open a consideraitle aperture for 

 the egress of its body. It is, in fact, furnished with a boring apparatus as effective in 

 its purposes, though not of the same description, as that of the larva. This was 

 exemplified in an experiment made by Captain Mitchell, of the Madras Museum, and 

 myself. A portion of a coffee tree which we split up (brought from Coorg about ten days 

 before) disclosed a beetle in a cleft of the tree, which proved afterwards to be a female. 

 She appeared to h;ive no inclination to escape, though she could easily have done 

 so. She was comfortable and apparently torpid in her hole. We lied up the piece of 

 the tree tightly, and Captain Mitchell placed it in a glass bottle with a stopper. la 

 the morning he examined it, and found the beetle outside the wood, lively, and 

 running up and down in a wonderfully active manner, feeling about with her 

 antennae as busily as possible. On examination of the piece of the 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 ii 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 iniujical 



to insect life? Can the ornithologist be of any service here? Those birds which live 

 chiefly in trees and hedges, if encouraged 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 deytruction, and I have no doubt ihe 



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 offv.r an easy prey to ligniperdous insects of all kinds? 

 I have slated 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 

 vaiious kinds of borers, some of which have actually attacked this year the sandal- 

 wood, whose scent il was supposed would scare the hungriest larvae ; some again have 



