230 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
in the long tunnels connecting their nests with the open air, and 
these scatter abroad, and probably form three or four new colonies, 
small to begin with, but very revengeful of the wrong done 
to the parent nest. 
In the San Jorge district the great devouring locust has as yet 
appeared only in very small numbers, and very rarely, I am 
grateful to record. The smaller locust, perhaps more properly a 
cricket, though a terrible scourge to pasture, does no harm, so 
far as I have observed, to trees, but I think it might do so. 
This insect plague is not, however, always with us, like the 
ants, and years may elapse before a destructive season or two is 
repeated. 
A white borer-worm, or grub, perforated in all directions the 
trees in an avenue of paraisos I made perhaps ten years ago, and 
the young branches decayed and fell off, but after a year or two 
the plague or borer-worm apparently left the trees, and they have 
grown since excellently well. I think the trees were perhaps 
three years old when this attack was made on them. In planta- 
tions made where long coarse grass is abundant, either inside or 
outside the plantation, the young trees are liable to be barked to 
death by the wild guinea-pig (Cavia aperca). I have also had 
willows and osier-willows, planted in boggy islands in the middle 
of swamps made by streams, barked and killed by, I certainly 
believe, the nutria (Myopotamus coypus); now, I am sorry to 
say, rather a rare animal with us. If cattle get into the fenced 
plantations they rub off branches, and do damage; and at one 
time I purposely admitted sheep into plantations, partly to keep 
down grass and partly for the shelter; but they nibbled off 
young shoots coming up from cut-down trees, and rubbed 
themselves against the bark of well-grown trees, and have 
since been banished as much as possible from the inside of our 
plantations. 
General Remarks.—The grass naturally grows very rank and 
long in these ploughed plantations, and I always fear what the 
accidental or intentional dropping of a lighted match or cigarette 
might do: so far no loss has occurred thus. But I hope that I 
may now obviate this great danger to some extent by cutting the 
grass for hay, baling it up, and possibly obtaining a sale sufficient 
at any rate to pay the expenses of this partial insurance, I have 
tried hedge-making or planting inside the wire fence, but have 
not yet succeeded in getting a good hedge, partly perhaps from 
