182 // VISIT TO RUBBER PLANTATIONS 



over the trees and tarring all cuts and the sockets left by the dropping 

 off of the temporary branches. This, however, would be very expensive 

 and hardly practical. I was able to secure a number of specimens of 

 the larva, and the Bureau of Entomology at Washington decided that 

 they belonged to one of the large moths, family Cossidce. Their report 

 was that they knew little about the work of this moth, but that the best 

 way to kill the borer was to inject a few drops of carbon bisulphide into 

 the burrow with an oil can, closing the orifice with a little wax. The 

 fumes of the solvent would then penetrate the lower part of the burrow 

 and kill the grub. Professor John Barlow, of Kingston, Rhode Island, 

 however, reported that instead of a moth it was probably a beetle. He 

 suggested the same treatment for the destruction of the grub as the 

 Bureau of Entomology at Washington. In this connection, it may be 

 well to recall that sometime before this an anonymous writer reported 

 that a beetle, the Aconsymus longimanus, was troublesome in Nica- 

 ragua just in this way that is, laying eggs in wounds in bark of the 

 Castilloa, which developed into borers and greatly injured the trees. 



The fruiter on which we finally embarked was a Norwegian of 

 about seven hundred tons, and carried ten thousand bunches of bananas. 

 As we were the only three passengers, we took possession of the bridge, 

 and also of the captain's quarters, and lived high in everything except 

 food. We went out in the face of a norther, and ran into one after another 

 during the whole passage. The boat had no refrigerating apparatus, 

 and to save the fruit both the fore and after hatches were kept wide 

 open, and it was a constant matter of wonderment to me that some of the 

 big green seas didn't topple over our bow and swamp us, but they 

 didn't, and we sailed on by Cape Gracias a Dios, through squall after 

 squall, the temperature all the time in the eighties, and finally, missing 

 the delta of the Mississippi by a wide margin, ran almost to Mobile 

 before we got our bearings. We finally got right, however, and went 

 up the Mississippi and landed in New Orleans just in time to enjoy 

 the fireworks with which they usher in Christmas Day. 



