DISEASES AND ENEMIES 279 



fruit-wall. The female deposits the eggs in the fruit- 

 wall ; the eggs are provided with a pair of hair-like 

 appendages and these protrude from the little holes in 

 the fruit- wall which contain the eggs. Each little hole 

 is surrounded by a dark coloured border. The larvae, 

 which apparently hatch after about a fortnight, craw 7 ! over 

 the fruits and at once begin to suck. Every place 

 where a larva or an adult insect puts its sucker into 

 the fruit begins to discolour and gradually becomes a 

 black spot. The insect remains on the fruit for the 

 whole of its lifetime, and the attacked fruit becomes 

 covered with smaller and larger black spots (ranging 

 between |- and 4 mm. diameter). 



Fruits of all ages are attacked. When the fruit is 

 only attacked on a few places and shows only a few 

 spots, the damage is not important, and the fruit will 

 develop normally. But when a fruit is attacked by a 

 large number of these insects, which remain there till 

 they are full grown, the damage is serious, for the fruit 

 is blackened over a great part of its surface and does 

 not develop properly. This is especially the case when 

 the eggs have been deposited on a young fruit. 



This pest has damaged the cocoa in Ecuador for the 

 past twenty-five years. The province of El Oro, near 

 Machala, is especially affected, but the enemy is present 

 over the whole coast region. In the province of El Oro 

 the damage done is sometimes so serious that hardly 

 any sound cocoa is reaped. This was, for instance, the 

 case in 1909. 



Eimbach proposes a remedy which is based on the 

 same plan as the "rampassing" method against the 

 cocoa-moth in Java : namely, to pick and destroy all 

 the fruits which are to be found at a time of the year 

 when there are but few fruits on the trees (at Machala 

 the best time would be the months of October, November, 

 and December). The fruits may be destroyed by 

 collecting them into heaps and treating them with 

 quicklime, or by burning or burying. 



This method may give good results when the 



