Miscellaneous. 315 



which they are washed in order to free them from the matter that 

 still adheres and binds them together. They are now laid out to 

 dry and bleach on rude frames of split bamboo. The process of 

 steeping, washing, and exposing to the sun is repeated for some days 

 until the fibres are considered to be properly bleached. Without 

 further preparation they are sent into town for exportation to China. 

 Nearly all the islands near Singapore are more or less planted 

 with pineapples, which at a rough estimate cover an extent of two 

 thousand acres. The enormous quantity of leaves that are annually 

 suffered to putrefy on the ground would supply fibre for a large 

 manufactory of valuable pina cloth. The fibre should be cleaned on 

 the spot. Fortunately the pineapple planters are not Malays, but 

 industrious and thrifty Bugis, most of whom have families. These 

 men could be readily induced to prepare the fibres. Let any mer- 

 chant oflfer an adequate price, and a steady annual supply will soon 

 be obtained. — From the Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern 

 Asia, No. 8, Aug. 1848. 



Advantages accruing from the Study of Entomology, 



To estimate in their true extent the important bearings of Ento- 

 mology on our pecuniary interests, we must not confine our attention 

 to the hundreds of thousands of pounds which we annually lose from 

 the attacks of the hop-fly, the turnip-flea, the wire-worm, the weevil, 

 and the host of insect-assailants of our home agricultural and horti- 

 cultural produce, but we must extend our views to our colonies, and 

 we shall there find that in Australia the potato crops (as we learn 

 from IVIr. Thwaites) are in some quarters wholly cut off by the 

 potato-bug ; that in the West Indies, in addition to the numerous 

 and long-known insect-enemies of the sugar-cane, a new pest of the 

 (7occM«-tribe, sent us by Dr. Davy, has lately attacked it in Barbados, 

 and the cocoa-nut trees in the same island have nearly fallen a sacri- 

 fice to a minute Aleyrodes referred to by Sir Robert Schomburgk ; 

 while in India the cotton crops are often seriously injured by insects 

 of vai'ious tribes, whose history we have yet to learn ; and in Ceylon, 

 the Governor, Lord Torrington, states, in a letter addressed last year 

 to Earl Grey, so serious have the attacks of the "Coff"ee-bug" (a 

 species of Coccus or scale-insect, said to be allied to C. Adonidiim) 

 proved for the last few years to the coffee-plantations, that the pro- 

 duce of one estate, which had in former years been 2000 cwt. of 

 coffee, fell suddenly to 700 cwt. wholly from the destruction caused 

 by the bug ; and a similar heavy loss as to other coffee-plantations 

 is confirmed by Mr. Gardner, who speaks of the insect as not con- 

 fining its ravages to these, but spreading to other trees and plants, 

 as limes, guavas, myrtles, roses, &c., so that in the Ceylon Botanic 

 Garden there is scarcely a tree not in some measure affected. 



It appears highly probable, from facts collected by Mr. Gardner, 

 and quoted in the ' Gardener's Chronicle' of Oct. 7, 1848, p. QQ7, 

 that this coffee-bug was introduced into Ceylon with some Mocha 

 coffee-plants brought from Bombay ; and it is equally probable, as 



