BEEGLES DESTRUCTIVE, TG: COCO-NUT PALMS. G 
to deposit its eggs in the cut. I quote from All Adout the 
Coco-nut Palm by Messrs. FERGUSON of Colombo, p. 12:— 
“Scores of instances might be recorded where, till the trees 
were come into bearing, a red beetle was never seen, but no 
sooner was the land cleared and the trees trimmed than it 
made its appearance and became very destructive. On one 
property, the trimming system had been carried on for years, 
till indeed more than one-third of the original plants perished 
before the estate was ten years old, and they were going at 
the rate of three trees weekly. The work of trimming was 
stopped for the reason offered above ; the loss of trees con- 
tinued for some time afterwards, but at the end of six months 
it had entirely ceased.”’ 
The cutting of notches by climbers in the trunk of the trees 
has been said to be injurious, under the impression that the 
red beetle may deposit its eggs in the notches, but, as _pre- 
viously stated, it does not attack old wood, that being too 
hard for the grub, and besides were it to deposit its eggs on 
the trunk of the tree, it would be exposed to the attacks of 
birds and bats during the operation. It certainly, however, does 
take advantage of the holes made by the elephant beetle, and 
it is very common to find both kinds of beetle in the same 
holes. It is very probable that the extermination of the black 
beetle will greatly reduce the number of the red one, by pre- 
venting their getting into the heart of the tree by means of 
the burrows of the black beetle. 
Many planters are of opinion that a tree once attacked 
by the red beetle should be immediately destroyed, on the 
grounds that the tree is doomed and the grubs in the tree 
can then be killed. But a very considerable proportion of 
the trees attacked recover. Unless one or more of the grubs 
bores through the growing point at the base of the cabbage, 
or sets up decay in the heart of it, the palm has a very good 
chance of recovery. At the same time, a tree once attacked 
is usually liable to further attacks from both kinds of beetles, 
and unless it is really a valuable tree, it is perhaps hardly 
worth attempting to save it. It is hardly necessary to state 
that when the central bud is destroyed, the palm cannot re- 
