220 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



comparative ease, but if it is once allowed to 

 get the upper hand whole trees soon become 

 perforated, so that in many cases it may 

 be necessary to cut down and completely 

 burn them. Their presence on young leaves 

 may be discovered by the shorn-off appear- 

 ance of the leaf. The rhinoceros- beetles, once 

 they have obtained a foothold in an estate, 

 are very difficult to get rid of, and the remedies 

 need great patience and perseverance. One 

 way is to probe into the holes with a piece of 

 wire provided at the end with a barb like a 

 fish-hook or crochet-hook, and having impaled 

 the insects to jerk them out ; another way is 

 by the injection of tar or strong insecticides 

 in their holes to smother or otherwise kill them. 



A very good remedy also is the setting out 

 on poles of "bug-lights"; these are made of 

 lighted charcoal placed in baskets, made of 

 hoop-iron, which are then stuck upon poles 

 about the plantation at night time when the 

 beetles are most prone to swarm. Large 

 numbers of them will be attracted to the light, 

 when they can be beaten down by men and 

 boys with brushes, and so caught and killed. 



Another insect which, through its potential 

 destructiveness, deserves to be mentioned here, 

 is the Rhynchophorus ferrugine^is, a small 

 black beetle with a long proboscis. We 

 describe it as a " black beetle " perhaps 

 wrongly. Its colour apparently varies from 

 black to a reddish brown, but the hue is dull 



