The Zoologist— June, 1368. 1261 



Borer in the year 1867,' by Colonel C. P. Taylor, of the Madras Staff Corps. The 

 following are extracts : — 



"A very prevalent opinion exists, I believe, that the borer may come to nothing', 

 or it may exterminate our plantations entirely. I confess that when I read of the 

 successes and failures of various kinds of cultivation, and reflect upon the good and 

 bad seasons all over the globe, when I consider how many luxuriant coffee estates 

 have for so many yeais succeeded in India, and moreover when T admit the un- 

 doubted fact that the red borer has been known for years on our estates and in 

 Ceylon, I cannot regard the extraordinary visitation of 1867 in any light but that of a 

 plague which has come upon us, and with due care and precaution on our part will 



pass away The borer was very destructive in 1859. His ravages in 



1867 are certainly more alarming, but I believe that although this insect may remain 

 more or less on the estates, such fatal ravages are not likely to occur for many years. 

 It is impossible to disguise the damage already done, and doubtless this becomes a 

 most serious question, hut I trust that many an estate may yet be saved to its owners. 

 I understand that some proprietors contemplate no further outlay, but purpose taking- 



the coming crop, whatever it may be, and then abandoning their properties 



It has been advanced by some persons who take a desponding view of this calamity 

 that the coffee estates may die out in the same manner as the vines have perished in 

 Madeira. I think we should dismiss any idea of this kind from our minds altogether, 

 as the cases are not analogous. The vines, it is generally admitted, perished from a 

 disease of the trees themselves, and not from any insect. The theory that the borer 

 only attacks weakly trees (though supported by a most eminent entomologist with 

 regard to ligniperdous insects) is, I believe, open to question in this case. Mr. Young, 

 the Chairman of the Carnatic Coffee Company, in writing from personal inspection, 

 declared that 'the finest trees are its choice victims;' and I believe every planter 

 who has seen the borer in any numbers will bear me out in the assertion that the 

 insect is indiscriminate in its ravages. It is quite possible that men who formed a 

 different opinion on their own estates were mistaken, and that the sickly appearance 

 they observed was in reality the borer who had entered the year before unnoticed. . . . 

 The trees which on passing through an estate the planter can perceive are showing 

 signs of something wrong should,- in my opinion, be taken up, and nightly bonfires be 



lighted with a collection of them Some estates which have had the borer 



for some three or four years are nearly destroyed. If the affected trees had been burnt 

 the first year, I believe that such estates might have been saved to a great extent. 

 As it is, on some estates, as many as seventeen perfect beetles have been discovered in 



one tree, in addition to others in the pupa state My impression is that the 



white borer has been in many plantations for several years, and that he goes on, 

 maturing or expiring, according to the weather. These dry seasons have enabled hirn 

 to make a great stride in his work of destruction, and the trees have become loaded 



with larvae I advise the burning of all affected trees; and as it has, 



I believe, been almost universally admitted in Coorg and Mysore that shade is 

 beneficial, I should plant shade in the vacancies instead of young coffee, which rarely 



succeeds with old plants The handling of trees for the removal of any 



eggs might be useful Fish-oil and soot are spoken of, to stop the* trees 



with, and chloride-of-lime water, or arsenic solution, or cyanide of potassium, to be 



