INSECT PESTS OF DATES IN MESOPOTAMIA. 295 



Family CURCULIONIDAE. 



Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, Oliv. 



Popenoe states that the *' Coconut Palm Borer, Rhynchophorus ferrvgineus^ has 

 killed date palms in India, and to less extent in Mesopotamia." Opposite p. 168 

 he gives a plate of two dying palms nearly leafless, under the title " Ravages of 

 the Palm Borer." However in a footnote he says that " he did not see the borer 

 itself in Baghdad," and his record appears to rest on descriptions received from 

 Arab sources. As far as I am aware this very large and conspicuous weevil has 

 never been obtained in Mesopotamia. Captain W. Edgar Evans, R.A.M.C., never 

 saw it though he lived in Amara, an important date-growing centre, for about a 

 year and made a very extensive collection of beetles ; it is absent also from one 

 or two smaller collections of beetles received from that country by the British 

 Museum. 



In India, on the other hand, this weevil is definitely known to attack the date 

 palm, and MacKenna tells us that it is capable of inflicting considerable damage. 

 It is found that the palm may be saved from attack if mud enclosures are 

 built round the trunk and kept filled with water. Milne figures palms the tops 

 of which have bent right down owing to this weevil. It is important to cover 

 with earth or tar the raw surface from which an offset has been detached. This 

 weevil is distributed from India to the Philippines (and possibly to New Guinea 

 also). Burkill gives a list of half a dozen palms from which it has been recorded, 

 the chief of them being the coconut, of which it is a major pest. 



It will possibly be found that other species of Rhynchophorus , e.g., the African 

 R. phoenicis, occasionally attack date palms. 



Thysanoptera. 

 Family Thripidae. 

 Heliothrips haemorrhoidalis, Bch. 



This insect is recorded by WiUiams as having been found on date palm in 

 Trinidad. It is the species known as the " Greenhouse thrips," and has been 

 recorded from every continent and has a long list of food-plants. It is not a pest of 

 the date palm. 



RHYNCHOTA. 

 Family COCCIDAE. 

 Parlatoria blanchardi, Targ. 



Ao7iidia blanchardi, Targioni Tozzetti, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, v, pp. 69-82, 



1892 (from Ourir, Shott Melrir, Algerian Sahara). 

 Parlatoria victrix, Cockerell, Arizona Exp. Stn. Bull. 14, 1895 ; and Entomologist 



xxix, p. 52, 1896 (on imported date palms). 

 ? Parlatoria proteus var. palmae, Maskell, Trans, and Proc. New Zeal. Inst. (1897) 



xxx, p. 229, 1898 (on date palms imported from Algeria into Austraha). 

 Parlatoria (Websteriella) blanchardi, (Targ.), H. H. King, Rept. Wellcome 

 Res. Labs. Khartoum, iii, p. 240, 1908. 



