XX 



of the Hague, relating to the insects which attack the cocoa-uut trees in 

 the West Indies : — 



" At Barbadoes the cocoa-nut trees were all destroj'ed by the Aleyrodes 

 cocois, which afterwards, according to Sir Robert Schomburgh, extended its 

 ravages over Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher's, and other islands, from 

 which I infer that it did the same in Martinique, as that island lies in the 

 same line with the rest. The year or years, however, in which all this 

 happened I have never been able to make out, and all that I can gather on 

 this point, from the ' History of Barbadoes,' is that the said trees had been 

 planted after the hurricane of 1831, and that they had attained to maturity 

 when the insect first showed itself, which, as regards the new plantations, 

 cannot well have been earlier than 1837, 



" Now it so happened that in March of the same year, whilst serving as 

 Lieutenant on board H.M. Brig ' Echo,' then stationed in the West Indies, 

 I assisted in carrying over from St. Pierre, Martinique, to Curacao a con- 

 siderable number of the nopal-plant [Cactus coccinillifera], peopled, of course, 

 by the cochineal insect ; and as it was not many months afterwards that, in 

 the last-named island, the cocoa-nut trees on some of the estates began to 

 show symptoms of being affected as if by bhght, which on examination was 

 pronounced to be caused by an insect of the CoccidcB or Coccus genus, 

 many persons there have ever since held the opinion that it was introduced 

 at the same time with the cochineal from Martinique, which opinion was 

 not a little strengthened when, in 1839, tidings from that island stated that 

 all the cocoa-nut trees there had been destroyed by an insect (name not 

 mentioned), but which, all things considered, I have not the least doubt 

 was the same species which ruined the cocoa-nut trees at Barbadoes. 



" After making a voyage to Europe, I arrived again at Curagao in the 

 beginning of September, 1838, where I took charge of the estate St, Joris, 

 belonging to my family, on which were about two thousand cocoa-iiut trees, 

 the greater part of which were then already in a sickly condition, caused 

 evidently by a microscopic insect which covered every part of the crown and 

 extended also deep down into the heart of the tree, though outwardly the 

 stem remained free from them. I applied every means that could tend to 

 arrest their progress, in which I persevered during several months, but 

 without any perceptible effect, for the fronds turned yellow and dropped to 

 the ground as before. Trees which when I arrived were still healthy 

 successively caught the infection, their leaves withered, and after they, as 

 well as the fruit-stalks, had all dropped, down came also the centre of the 

 crown, when nothing remained but the lifeless trunk, a useless encumbrance 

 to the soil, as the wood is fit for nothing — not even for fuel. On all the 

 other estates they had the same story to relate, and at the end of the year 

 1839 not one of those noble palm trees remained ahve, which, to the number 

 of 20,000, had graced this barren island only a year before. 



