The range of the cocoa-nut palm is therefore wider than that of cither 

 insect, and bein so extensive — 



while iis original home, which De Candolle finally considered as being 

 in the Old World, is -o doubtful -that if i- now impossible to speculate 

 on the length of time that the tree and either species of weevil have 

 been in association. [Jul whether it has always served as food for the 

 American I 'aim Weevil or not, it is now perfectly clear that the insect is 

 not dependent on that tree alone, and that i/s cc(ir/>a//on could not be 

 effected in Honduras b// ca/f/ia/ (bun,- and dcslroi/iiuj ever;/ .single 

 cocoa-, nit palm in tin colon)/. 



Honduras possesses as large if not a larger variety and number of 

 palms than perhaps any other region where the cocoa-nut is cultivated, 

 and the greater proportion of the country is in a wild state and 

 cannot be dealt with by any economic measures ; there, at all events, 

 it would appeal that the natural food of the insect consists of wild 

 palms, from which its attention has been diverted to the cocoa-nut 

 plantations. 



Of these wild species the chief is the common Cohoon or Corozo palm, 

 which does not grow in the same situations as the cocoa-nut tree, 

 but in the rich alluvial soil of the Corozal, or cohoon ridges. These 

 ridges are really depressions between the series of quartz elevations 

 running more or less at right angles to the seaboard. 



The cocoa-nut, a lover of sandy soil near the coast, is grown in planta- 

 tions as a rule not nearer than five or six miles to the cohoon ridges, but 



for banana growing, a id for growing cocoa-nuts 



for which the soil is unsuitable, the cohoon and other palms have been 

 extensively felled and allowed to lie upon the ground ; this has resulted 



the felled trunks. As long as they are feeding on wild plants they are 

 not likely to multiply fast, because a balance will have established itself 

 ending 1 



diinini-h the number ot the beetles on the one hand, and the rate of pro- 



1 destructiveness of the latter on th 



e other hand — otherwise 



beetles or palms must gradually die out; and ol 





India have noticed that the number of wild pain 



is is not sensibly affected 



by the presence of the weevils. 





But if this balance i- a uses such as the euttimr 



of cohoon palms, which favour the weevils, a 



ise in their 



numbers will result. 





There IS g : tha? the e 









the Commissioners' report. Mr. Haber in his evi, 









Mr. Hunter has informed the writer that little - 



vas known of the beetle 



until about 1SSS, a period which coincided \> 



nth wholesale felling of 



cohoon palms in order to bring the ridges under 



cultivation. 



As there is a particular age when the coc< 



>a-nut becomes liable to 



attack, namely, at the time of it; first bearin; 









further connexion between the elearingof the rii 



!ge and the damage done 



f lsss, " sonic five trees altogether having succumbed to the attacks of 

 th<; bug " ( -26). This tends to negative the idea of a coincidence, for the 



