BEETLES DESTRUCTIVE TO COCO-NUT PALMS. 7 
appearance to that of the elephant beetle. It burrows tun- 
nels through the soft growing portion of the palm, and when 
full grown nibbles its way to the surface, and forming an egg- 
shaped cocoon becomes a chrysalis, and eventually hatches 
out into the perfect insect. Some persons affirm that the 
beetle lays its eggs in the base of the tree, and that the grubs 
then burrow upwards. I have seen no case of this, nor have 
I ever seen the beetle at the foot of the tree, unless the palm 
happened to be stemless. In all the trees affected by the red 
beetle, that i have cut up, I found grubs only in the soft pithy 
wood at the base of the cabbage, and here they were some: 
times thickly crowded together. I have certainly seen bur- 
rows made by some insect in the old stems of the coco palm, 
but I do not believe that they were the work of this animal, 
but, probably of some Longicorn beetle, several species of 
which occur here, and the grubs of which eat hard wood. 
Lee We elephant beetle, this species attacks also other 
palms besides the coco-nut. Many of those mentioned as at- 
tacked by the former in the Botanic Gardens having also 
been attacked by the latter. 
It is by no means so easy to find out when a palm is at- 
tacked by this insect, as it is in the case of the preceding. It 
works entirely inside the tree, and makes little or no external 
marks. By listening at the side of the tree the grub can be 
heard gnawing the wood. But usually the withering and fall 
of the central shoot is the first sign that anything Is wrong. 
In some cases a tree exudes a shiny liquid having an un- 
pleasant sour smell, which is a sign of serious damage. 
Description of the Grub.—The grub is a thick, fleshy, cy- 
Iindrical, opaque white larva, with no feet or antenne, quite 
hairless, except for some scattered hairs on the head and also 
afew on the tail. The head is small in proportion to the 
body, oblong and black, with small jaws. The segment next 
to the head is horny, but softer and paler than the head, with 
some subtriangular darker patches on either side. The body 
is curved and wrinkled, and almost equally thick without. 
The tail ends ina flat, squared process, with a few tubercles on 
which there are hairs. The grub lives in the burrows which it 
