Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



gathered from the traps, and the supply of 

 beetles in various localities is diminishing, but 

 it is not supposed that they will be eliminated, 

 although some thousands of such traps are 

 now in use. The insects attack the palms in 

 the usual method and in many instances they 

 kill them outright, particularly very young and 

 very old trees. 1 Besides this, they do much 

 damage to other trees which may survive, but 

 which cannot resist this scourge, although at 

 the same time they yield full crops until they 

 succumb. One planter sends men into his 

 trees to remove the beetles with bent wires, or 

 to drive them out with an injection of blue- 

 stone water made strong enough to fatally 

 affect the insects. When these are removed 

 the trees are painted with a mixture in equal 

 parts of coal tar and kerosene. This produces 

 a sort of thick varnish, and it is declared that 

 no beetle ever attempts to bore through it. 

 So far about 5,000 trees have been treated in 

 this way, some being mere shoots less than 

 one year old. None of them appear to have 

 been harmed, and none of them have been 

 revisited by the beetles, although they swarm 

 on neighbouring properties. If bluestone 

 injection is used to kill the mature beetle as 

 he lies in the hole which he has made, care 

 ought to be taken to use a mixture that is not 

 strong enough to destroy, the palm. Several 



1 For full particulars of this pest, the Oryctes rhinoceros, 

 see pp. 270, et seq., also (with illustration) pp. 124. 



