6 



Indian "Museum Notes. 



I Vol. III. 



is said to interfere very seriously with 

 the exportation of Indian cheroots. So 

 far as is known the beetle lays its eggs on 

 the leaf, and the little curved white hairy 

 grubs, which emerge from these eggs, 

 tunnel their way through the tobacco, and 

 finally transform into white motionless 

 pupae from which the beetles emerge 

 ready to cut their way out of the cheroot, 

 and thus form the round holes which are 

 so characteristic a sign of the presence 

 of the insect. The length of time spent 

 by the insect in its various stages has not 

 yet been traced, and tbere is still a good 

 deal of doubt as t*> the stiig-e in the manu- 

 faetuie at which the eggs are usually 

 laid. In some old broken-up cheroots, 

 kindly furnished by Mr. G. W. L. Caine, 

 in August 1891, were found both some 

 very young larvae and also two minute 

 eggs which were thought to belong to this 

 species. The eggs were transparent-white 

 in colour, showing the yolk cells by trans- 

 mitted light. They were oval in shape, 

 with a number of minute protuberances 

 at one pole, and they measured, one of them, 

 about a fifth, and the other about a third 

 of a millimetre in length. They were 

 found loose amongst the broken pieces of 

 tobacco leaf. The eggs were evidently 

 ulive when found, and their presence in 

 the old cheroots goes to show that eggs are at least sometimes laid after 

 the cheroots have been matured. This indicates that care in packing and 

 storing the cheroots is likely to tend to reduce injury by the insect, 

 though it would not of course prevent damage in cases where eggs had 

 been laid on the leaf before it was made into cheroots. It was suggested 

 that, subjecting the cheroots to a temperature of 80 or 90 degrees 

 centigrade for a few hours before packing, might serve to destroy any 

 eggs or grubs they contained. This treatment, however, was found to 

 injure the flavour of the cheroots, so could not be recommended. Upon 

 the whole, the most likely means of reducing damage by the weevil seem 

 to be — firstly, to keep the leaf, during the process of its manufacture, 

 as much as possible out of the wav of old cheroots and refuse tobacco of 



