174 SPICES 



CHAP. 



be repeated or the alga will return, and in unsuitable 

 localities inland the pest becomes hopeless. 



In some cases there is persistent death of the 

 terminal buds, which turn black when hardly -J- in. long 

 and die. Usually, if the tree is strong, a side bud is 

 produced, grows for a time, and dies ; then another 

 axillary bud is produced and the same thing happens, 

 until the branch dies away altogether. In some cases 

 the production of lateral buds is so extensive that 

 the ends of the boughs form a kind of brush or small 

 bush. In all the cases I have seen such trees are in- 

 fected with Cephaleurus, but I am not quite certain that 

 this is the cause of the destruction, as I have not been 

 able to get good specimens of the pest fruiting on the 

 buds. The treatment with copper sulphate advised for 

 the one would, however, in any case, be suitable for the 

 other. In looking over various trees and shrubs of 

 other species for the Ceplialeurus, I did not find it upon 

 tea bushes in the neighbourhood of the cloves, nor on 

 Calophyllum or other coriaceous leaved plants except 

 on the cassia bark, Cinnamomum cassia, but it does 

 not seem to be very injurious to this plant. 



Borer -Cater pillar. This pest is not uncommon in 

 Penang, where I saw it seriously damaging trees at 

 Penara Bukit. The caterpillar was black, with yellow 

 rings, and covered with rather sparse long hairs. It 

 is about 1^- in. long when nearly adult. 



It bores into the branches, more rarely the main 

 stem, tunnelling up the centre and eventually killing 

 the branch. Two or three may occur in one branch. 

 The entrance to the burrow is protected by a web en- 

 closing the small pellets of excreta. These boring 

 caterpillars are very difficult to rear, and I failed to get 

 them to develop into the moth. The usual Chinese 

 treatment for this pest is to cut into the branches and 

 hack out the caterpillar, but this is very injurious to 

 the tree. The simplest method of dealing with this 

 insect would be to spear it in its burrow by passing a 

 thin wire up. This is not difficult, as the tunnel is 



