44 COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



sometimes 3rd of an inch deep, with her snout, and then put an 

 egg down into this hole with her long ovipositor. Or she may push 

 an egg into a convenient crack or a soft spot with her ovipositor alone. 

 The weevil often makes use of the holes bored into the crown of palms 

 by the Black Beetle, or she may push her eggs into the soft tissues 

 at the base of a damaged leaf stalk. Eggs may also be laid anywhere 

 in the trunk where there is a soft spot or a wound, or they may be 

 deposited at the base of palms where the bark has cracked. Young 

 palms up to ten or twelve years old are specially liable to attack since 

 they are more easily damaged, and therefore more attractive to egg- 

 laying weevils than older palms. 



Differences between the Red Weevil and the 

 Black Beetle 



Except that these two pests are both beetles, they are quite 

 different in general appearance throughout their various stages of 

 development and in their breeding habits. These differences have 

 been brought out separately in leaflet No. 21 and in the present leaf- 

 let, but they are here contrasted together for convenient reference. 



Beetles. — The Red Weevil is smaller and more slender than the 

 Black Beetle, and is i-eddish-brown in colour, with a long slender snout 

 projecting forwards and downwards from the front part of the head. 

 The Black Beetle is a much larger and stouter insect, and is dark 

 brown to blackish in colour with a horn curving upwards and back- 

 wards from the top of the head. The Weevil does practically no 

 injury to the palm, but the Beetle damages palms by boring into the 

 crown in order to feed on the sap. 



Eygs and Lwrvce. — The Weevil lays its small, slender, whitish 

 eggs in any wcund or soft spot on living palms, and its larva? feed and 

 develop inside the living parts of the palm, eventually killing it or in- 

 juring it seriously. The Beetle lays its rather broadly oval whitish 

 eggs in dead palms, in manure and other refuse heaps, in old palm 

 stumps and logs, and its larvae feed and develop in such places, and 

 have nothing whatever to do with living healthy palms, so far as i s 

 known at the present time. The Weevil larva? are rather stout fleshy 

 grubs, tapering at both ends, of a creamy colour and with no legs, 

 whereas the Beetle larva? are somewhat cylindrical, usually resting in 

 curved position, of a dirty white to bluish colour, and have six rather 

 long, jointed legs. 



