THE SUGAR WEEVIL. 227 



" When the canes are cut, the grub-worm has already arrived 

 at its second transformation. It has enveloped itself within the 

 gallery it has bored, in a shroud of decayed trash wrought with 

 curious neatness ; the shreds being plaited and wound together, 

 and so closely fastened at the ends, that the air is excluded ; and 

 if exposed to the weather, no weather could injure it. I have 

 watched the grub in the act of making this cerement. It first 

 wraps itself all over with such of the rotting fibres of the cane 

 as are near it. It tears the strips asunder with its forceps, and 

 matting the pieces one within the other, it completely conceals 

 itself within that kind of case usually called a cocoon, where 

 it remains dormant for a little interval of time. 



"It has now assumed its third or beetle state, and emerges from 

 the excavated cane a Weevil, bearing a rostrum or snout charged 

 with fracticorn feelers, and wearing a splendid livery, striped 

 yellow and brown — an insect about the size of the nail of one's 

 finger. If the cocoon be opened before this last transformation, 

 the pupa found within is of a clingy brown colour, and its bulky 

 body is well supplied with the usual milky fluid, stored for that 

 final change in which it comes forth from its temporary sleep, to 

 become the parent of a succession of enemies to the planter." 



The object of trashing the whole of the plants in the field 

 is here given, together with directions for cleaning damaged 

 juice :— 



" The sheathing footstalk is not only a shelter for this Weevil, 

 but it hinders the outer covering of the cane from hardening 

 and fixing that deposition of white powdery glass which resists 

 the puncture of its proboscis. If with all this care the planter 

 finds himself overwhelmed by the numbers of his assailants, or 

 by the success with which they have established themselves in 

 his fields, nothing remains but destruction by fire. 



" But great as is the damage which this insect does in the 

 field, it is a still greater calamity to have it in the mill-house. 

 To mingle the juice of the injured cane with the uninjured, is 

 to ruin a crop. The expedient of tempering the liquor, while 

 running into the pans, may arrest the increase of the evil, but it 

 does not get rid of it. 



"If, however, the most painstaking watchfulness has not secured 

 the manager from an occasional bundle of infected canes getting 

 into the mill, and if the pernicious consequences have begun to 



Q 2 



