PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 455 
“Effects of weather and state of health of the plants appear to act 
strongly on the borers generally, the attacks being noted as worst in 
seasons of drought; this, apparently (as with some of our English attacks), 
from the dry weather, and state of the plant-juices being favourable to the 
insects, and also from the plants not being able to make way against them, 
or ‘ grow past,’ as it is termed. 
“This point is worth notice, relatively to what may be found to answer 
from increased irrigation or anything keeping up the vigour of the plant 
as stimulant application; and I may observe that in an experiment 
instituted with regard to the effects of the mixture known as ‘ Soluble 
Phenyle,’ this was applied in diluted form with ash of the burnt 
canes, and whether from the ash or the ‘phenyle,’ or both, a growth 
was reported of a remarkably healthy green, and although the difference 
in amount of insect presence accompanying was not great, it was certainly 
less.” 
Mr. W. L. Distant stated that he had had some experience in sugar- 
cane growing in Malacca, and he was of opinion that the remedy for 
exterminating the borers lay with the planters themselves. The necessity 
was to burn all the refuse “trash” from the canes, as was done on the 
largest estates, and not allow such to accumulate, as frequently took place 
on badly managed plantations. He had only that day been discussing the 
matter with a large cocoa-nut palm grower of Malacca. That palm suffers 
severely from the depredations of two beetles, Xylotrupes gideon and Oryctes 
rhinoceros, and the principal defence is to prevent the accumulation of 
vegetable refuse. Frequently Chinamen who had adjoining plantations 
would allow “paddy” husk, or sawdust, to accumulate, thus affording 
breeding grounds for these destructive insects, to the injury of all the 
surrounding estates. 
Miss Ormerod stated that the planters in British Guiana had now 
become aware of the importance of not allowing refuse to accumulate. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan was of opinion that the cane-borers could be entirely 
exterminated by weeding out and burning the canes as soon as they showed 
any symptoms of being infested. 
Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited a specimen of the so-called « vegetable 
caterpillar” from New Zealand, procured for him by Dr. Dunkley. This 
is the larva of a moth, Hepialus vivescens, on which the spores of Cordyceps 
(Spheria) Robertsii frequently fall, becoming truly vegetable parasites, 
destroying the caterpillars, and growing therefrom in the form which has 
caused so many erroneous statements to be made. This caterpillar feeds on 
the Convolvulus (native potato). 
Mr. T. R. Billups exhibited a larva of Plusia chrysitis and some specimens 
of an Ichneumon that infested it. He stated that 120 of the Ichneumons 
had emerged, and that he had identified them as a species of Paaxylloma, 
