1262 The Zoologist— June, 1868. 



syringed/into them. Of all preventive and remedial measures as yet proposed, 

 I consider the most valuable to be tbe plan of whitewashing the trees when good lime 

 can be procured. Fires should invariably be lighted at this season, because it appears 

 that the borer beetle escapes at night, and during this month (September). At the 

 same time it is probable the beetle may escape during ihe daytime also. It has the 

 power of boring its way out of the tree after it has changed from the pupa to the 

 perfect beetle, notwithstanding that it may have to open a considerable aperture for 

 the egress of its body. It is, in fact, furni*ked with a boring apparatus as effective in 

 its purposes, though not of the same description, as that of the larva. This was 

 exemplified in an experiment made by Captain Mitchell, of the Madras Museum, and 

 myself. A portion of a coffee tree which we split up (brought from Coorg about ten days 

 before) disclosed a beetle in a cleft of the tree, which proved afterwards to be a female. 

 She appeared to have no inclination to escape, though she could easily have done 

 so. She was comfortable and apparently torpid in her hole. We tied up the piece of 

 the tree tightly, and Captain Mitchell placed it in a glass bottle with a stopper. In 

 the morning he examined it, and found the beetle outside the wood, lively, and 

 running up and down in a wonderfully active manner, feeling about with her 

 antennae as busily as possible. On examination of the piece of the tree, we found 

 that during the night this insect had bored a large hole outwards, and had come out 



of the bark from the position in which we first discovered her It is 



doubtful whether the beetles will fly into the fire, though they will come rouud it in 

 great numbers, in which case coolies with nets or branches of trees might kill a great 



many Can we introduce or encourage the breed of any animals inimical 



to insect life? Can tbe ornithologist be of any service here ? Those birds which live 

 chiefly in trees and hedges, if encouraged aud protected on an estate, might prove 

 formidable enemies to the borer. Flocks of guinea-fowls would kill a large number of 

 insects; .... they are mostly attached to white ants and grubs, but thi* borer is a very 

 diminutive insect considering his powers of destruction, and I have no doubt the 



guinea-fowl would take to him amazingly Is it the case that, after two 



or more seasons of failure iu the average amount of rain, the coffee trees become to a 

 certain extent sapless, and offer an easy prey to liguiperdous insects of all kinds? 

 I have staled before that this is open to question, but it has been asserted that such is 

 the case, and that when the trees are luxuriant, and from constant showers in 

 seasonable and heavy monsoons they have become in a high state of cultivation and 

 are full of sap, the borer cannot make so much way in his depredations; he is, in fact, 

 bothered (so to speak) by too much moisture in the wood. There are doubtless 

 various kinds of borers, some of which have actually attacked this year the sandal- 

 wood, whose scent it was supposed would scare the hungriest larvae ; some again have 

 attacked dried-up and utterly sapless trunks, in whose fibrous elements not a particle 



o£ nourishment could be supposed to dwell It is important to discover if 



a juicy or a sapless coffee bush is selected by the borer, and if so, by what borer. . . . 

 I believe that the white or red borer was originally indiscriminate in his attacks, either 

 in shade or the open. I believe that the spread ol insects has greatly increased by the 



absence of shelter for the birds of the forest I think that in many cases 



which have undoubtedly occurred, where the coffee in the open has been so fearfully 

 injured by insects, the real cause has been that the warmth of such situations is 

 peculiarly favourable to insect development. Millions of eggs might be hatched in 



