40 THE SUGAR-CANE INSECTS OF HAWAII. 
influence the ability to use this method. The method is mre Tensile . 
where the plantation is so situated that women and children can be 
employed for the work. Care should be exercised in this work in 
order that the growing leaves may not be broken down. It is 
obvious that a larger number of beetles will be collected when the 
wages are based on the numbers collected, but the results are more 
satisfactory, as regards breaking down the cane, when the wages of 
the laborers are fixed at a certain amount per day. 
In the Fiji Islands a method of baiting the beetles is employed, 
which consists of splitting cane stalks and placing pieces about the 
edges of the field and within the rows at certain intervals. The 
methed as practiced in Fiji is thus described by Mr. Koebele.? 
At the request of the Colonial Sugar Company we looked ‘nto the matter with a. 
view of getting rid of the beetles the best way possible; all sorts of devices were em- 
ployed and none worked better than pieces of split cane about 12 inches long, placed 
along the edges of the field and through the same at intervals of 12-18 feet; thus with 
seven little Indian girls, I collected over 16,000 beetles in some four hours, and the 
same little girls alone brought in the following noon over 26,000 beetles. 
This method was kept up, and followed on all the plantations jor the next three 
years, or until no more of the borers could be found. Tons of the same were brought 
in at the Nausori mill alone, and the expenses of collecting were practically nothing 
compared to the cost at Lihue, where such work has to be done by the day laborers. 
About four cents per pint of the insects was paid tothe children. The result has been 
highly satisfactory, for, ever since the last five years, the cane borer has not been a 
pest in those islands. 
An important point regarding this split cane is that the females 
usually infest these pieces heavily with eggs and the young resulting 
grubs bore into the split stalks and perish as the pieces of cane become 
dry. In dry localities the pieces of split cane should be placed in the 
irrigation ditches during the day and placed out as bait in the even- 
ing, otherwise they dry out rapidly and cease to attract the beetles. 
RELATED SPECIES. 
The Hawaiian sugar-cane borer is represented in the United States 
by the ‘‘corn bill-bugs,” of the genus Sphenophorus, several species 
of which in the adult stage attack the leaves of corn, but rarely breed 
in the stalk of corn as does the Hawaiian Sphenophorus in the stalk 
of cane. The Hawaiian cane borer does not occur on the mainland of the 
United States. 
a KoEBELE, ALBERT.—Hawaiian Planters’ Monthly, vol. 19, no. 11, p. 522, Novem- 
ber, 1900. 
