The Black Bug. 265 



minute insect, which attaches itself to the tenderest 

 shoots of the plant ; the females having the appear- 

 ance of small scollop shells, of a brown colour, 

 adhering to the leaf or twig in the same manner as 

 the scollop shell to a rock. Each of these forma- 

 tions is said to contain several hundred eggs under- 

 going incubation. In a short time the whole of 

 the green wood of the tree will become covered 

 with these, and coated over with a black soot-like 

 powder, which is an excretion of the insects. This 

 excretion renders a tree affected by the disease 

 easily discernible at a distance. 



From one tree the bug will soon spread over 

 whole fields or whole estates, entirely checking the 

 growth of the trees, the fresh young shoots being 

 always first attacked, and such wood as is allowed 

 to mature producing hardly any crop. The berries, 

 moreover, are in their earliest stage destroyed by 

 these insects, which seem to cut them off at the 

 stalk from the mere love of destruction. 



The following description of the coffee bug is 

 taken from Sir J. Emerson Tennent's work on 

 Ceylon : " A number of small wart-like bodies 

 may be seen studding the young shoots and buds, 

 and occasionally the margins of the under sides of 

 the leaves. Each of these warts is a transformed 

 female, containing a large number of eggs (about 

 700), which are hatched within it. When the young 



