EDITORIAL. 



TYPHOONS, COCONUTS, AND BEETLES. 



Keports are frequently seen of the destruction of considerable numbers 

 of coconiit trees by tj'phoons. As the chief coconut-producing districts 

 of the Philippines are subject to typhoons, and as the tree thrives in 

 exposed situations, I have been interested in seeing what damage is 

 actually done to it by storms. During several years of attention to this 

 subject, I have yet to see the first sound trunk broken by the wind, or the 

 first tree uprooted, unless its root system had already been exposed or 

 weakened. Typhoons doubtless do break sound coconut trees; but it 

 must be rarely indeed. Trunks extensively channeled by beetles are com- 

 paratively often broken; and trees the roots of which have been laid 

 bare by washing away the soil, or which grow in ground too wet to permit 

 the healthy growth of the roots, are often overturned. However, the 

 loss of such trees is not a serious matter. 



Very severe storms weaken the trees and set them back materially by 

 breaking the leaves; and they sometimes destroy a considerable part 

 of the crop in sight by throwing down immature nuts, even the very 

 young ones, but vigorous trees entirely outgrow such injury within a year. 



However, in places where beetles, especially coconut weevils (red 

 beetles), Bhynclioplioriis ferrugineus Fabr., are a serious pest, violent 

 storms furnish conditions for their entrance and multiplication and in 

 this way do damage which is neither insignificant nor transient. This 

 weevil is ordinarily unable to penetrate the thick and dense fibrous 

 protection made by the imbricate leaf-bases around the upper end of 

 the stem, and can only attack trees to which the rhinoceros beetle 

 {^lang) , Oryctes rhinoceros Linn., has already done some injury. The 

 breaking of the petioles, the tearing of the fibrous bases and the occasional 

 split cracks of the trunks, caused by severe storms, make it possible for 

 the weevils to enter many trees and so to multij^ly rai^idly; once in the 

 tree, this pest is decidedly more dangerous than the uang. 



Mr. E. E. Green, government entomologist of Ceylon, reports a remark- 

 able increase in the number of red beetles after a cyclone which visited 

 the Batticaloa district in March, 1907. The beetles had been system- 

 atically collected since 1903, the number decreasing steadily; the rec- 

 ord for various plantations being complete by months. In one case 



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