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them with coal oil, but don’t know yet whether the coal oil will kill the vines or 
not. They have infested about twenty vineyards, and all on the same day.— [J. J. 
Leeson, New Mexico, June 26, 1891. 
REPLY.—The insect is one of the steel-blue Flea-beetles known as Haltica Foliacea 
Lec. Your remedy of spraying with kerosene is a good one, but if you use pure 
kerosene you will probably injure the foliage of your plants quite as much as the 
beetles would have done had they been unmolested. It will be better for you to 
prepare an emulsion of kerosene and soap according to the formnla on page 5 of 
Circular No. 1 of this Division. I will esteem it a favor if you will notify me as to 
the success of your spraying applications and as to the future spread of the insect.— 
[July 3, 1891.] | 
Notes on the Palm Weevil. 
I mail you to-day three cocoanut beetles which lay the eggs of the borers in the 
cocoanut trees. Also inclosed find a published article by myself clipped from Home 
and Farm of Louisville, Ky.; they find no remedy. I am in hopes that you will be 
kind enough to inform me of some remedy or protection.—[John B. Hickey, Hon- 
duras, Central America, September 14, 1891. 
* *« * About one month ago I cut down a small cohoon tree, very much resem- 
bling the cocoanut palm, cutting it through the tender portion—the bud. In two 
or three days it began to sour, and for a few evenings, between sunset and dark, I 
noticed several of these beetles fly to it and bury themselves an inch or more in the 
soft pulp, some of them remaining there all day. In about 10 days they were all gone. 
A month later I cut the stump off about 3 feet lower down and found it full of holes, 
and some ten or twelve worms about the size of a man’s thumb, 14 inches long, 
with a short, hard head, resembling very much the common grub worm. Now, it is 
my opinion that the beetle lays the eggs of these boring worms in blooms, which, 
when dead, fall between the stalks, and from them come the worms which bore in 
the body of the tree and soon kill it. They do not make much of a hole at first, but 
under favorable conditions soon become large enough to do permanent damage. 
The cocoanut tree is especially adapted to soil near the salt water, and during a 
rainy spell of a few days I have noticed a golden-colored glue or sap running out of 
some of the trees, but failed to find any borers in them. Burning the top of the 
tree with fire when the first symptoms are noted will save the tree from total 
destruction, but it dwarfs it so much that it is of but little good afterwards. These 
beetles are found in southern Florida as well as here. When a cabbage palm is cut 
down the stump is attacked much like the cohoon stump I have described. There 
are, however, old cocoanut groves in Florida which have had no experience with 
these borers and know nothing of them. Iam in hopes that I can find some remedy 
or protection. 
REPLY.—The cocoanut beetle which you send, and to which you refer in your 
printed communication to the Louisville (Ky.) Home and Farm, is the well-known 
Palm Weevil, Rhynchophorus palmarum Linn., which is abundant throughout Central 
America and a large portion of South America, extending also into the extreme 
southern portion of California. The Palm Weevil of Florida which develops in the Cab- 
bage Palmetto is a different, though congeneric species, Rhynchophorus zimmermanni 
Schoenh. (cruentatus Fab.). There is no way of saving a cocoanut tree once badly 
infested by the larve of the weevil, and since such trees will surely die, they should 
be promptly felled and the infested portion burned to prevent a further multiplica- 
tion of the beetles. There is, however, a preventive method, and this consists in 
cutting down or wounding several young trees of any wild species of palm growing 
in the vicinity of the cocoanut trees. The fermenting sap of the trunks of such 
trees, as you have yourself seen, attracts the beetles strongly, and a multitude of 
them can thus easily be captured and killed before they have oviposited. The trunks 
of the felled trees will soon be filled with the larvex, and the infested portion should 
