VI. — Other Insects. 



Another question for consideration is the possibility of other kinds 

 of insects aiding or preceding the weevil in its work of destruction. 

 There is no evidence whatever lliat such is the ease in Honduras, if we 

 except another species of weevil, but it is not so elsewhere. 



The Indian weevil shares its ro.-ponsibility with two other beetles, 

 Xylotnipcs gideon, Linn., and Ori/chs rltiimecros. Linn., both quite 

 distinct in appearance and allied to the chafers. The latter, the 

 Ehinoceros, Elephant or " black beetle" of the Indian planter, is a stout 

 cylindrical insect about 2\ inches long ; the head lias no snout whatever, 

 hut is short and hroad with small cluhbed antenna 1 , whose ends are formed 

 of several flat plates placed side by ado. Between the eyes is a fixed 

 horn, like that of the ihinoceros, large in the male, small in the female. 

 The legs are very strong, with stout shanks set on the outer edge with 

 three teeth, and five- join ted feet. 



The grubs are large, soft and curved, with six stout legs and a baggy 

 hinder end ; they are harmless, and live in heaps of rotting vegetable . 

 matter or the manuredike inside of decayed palm trees. The beetles 

 are the destroyers, and attack the palm at night, boring in at the base 

 of the leaf-stalks till they reach the cabbage, thus forming holes which 

 attract the weevils. They bite through the young folded leaves which 

 become characteristically ragged, and may kill the tree by injuring 

 the bud. 



Treatment consists in the removal or destruction of the heaps of rotting 

 matter in which they breed, and in extracting the beetles from the holes 



These two insects are not natives of America, but many allied species 

 are there common. 



The Hon. W. Ru.-v-ell has described the ravages in Demerara of 

 the Klephant beetle on palms (1.5). The insect referred to is nrohal.lv 

 Meijasomu actaon, Linn., as Dr. Sharp, F.R.S., has kindly informed the 

 writer. A similar -p.-cie-, Metpisoiiia th pitas, Fal >r., occurs in Hon- 

 duras and is an enormous insect, some 4. 1 , inches long in the male and 

 'J inches hroad. It is stout and square, black in colour, hut densely 

 covered with a fine brown pile. The head in the male is prolonged into 

 a long horn with a forked tip, which is turned up and is not, as in the 

 weevil, a snout with its mouth at the end ; there is a shorter horn 

 behind and two on the shoulders. The legs are very stout, and the 

 shanks spined. 



The Elephant beetle, according to Mr. Kussell, burrows into the earth 

 at the roots of young trees. It makes small holes " like crab holes," 

 and works its way down until the blanched part of the palm is reached, 



all white-winged fly. Alvuradts rorois, 

 est the leave-s. For the latter syrinx 

 uld he the proper means to adopt. 



the Bearded We 



