COFFEE. 



49 



every leaf. Year after year they appeared upon the same place. In 

 May, when these insects disappear, the logs and rocks may be seen 

 strewed with their bright green elytra." 



The family of the weevils is one of the most extensive amongst the 

 beetles, and many of its members both here and in Europe do much 

 injury to agricultural produce. I have seen nearly the whole sweet 

 potato (Batatas edulis) crop of the Negombo district destroyed by one 

 of them, the Cylas turcijpennis. The common rice-weevil (SitopMlus 

 Oryzce) is another instance, and one of the cocoanut destroyers of 

 the low country belongs also to this family, the Sj)hcenopJiorus 

 planipennis. 



Acarus Coffece. —This is a very minute mite, hardly perceptible to 

 the naked eye, which feeds upon the coffee leaves nearly all the year 

 round, but more commonly from November to April, giving them a 

 brownish sun-burnt appearance. The damage it does is not great in 

 the aggregate, but individual trees certainly suffer from it. It is 

 closely allied to the " red spider " of the hothouses in Europe ; oval, 

 naked, light red, abdomen darker, four rows of hair along the back, 

 legs hairy. It feeds on the upper side of the leaves where, amongst 

 the live insects, empty skins and minute red globules are found in 

 plenty. These globules are fixed by a style to the leaf, and are the 

 young in the first stage of existence ; -the style is the mouth, but the 

 rest of the body is a perfect globule without any appendages whatever. 

 These latter, however, gradually break forth, and when the animalcule 

 is furnished with all it requires, it lets go its hold. 



Coffee rat {Golunda ElUoti). — This well-known animal does not 

 habitually reside on coffee estates, but comes, apparently, when its 

 food fails, from the jungle to the neighbou.ring estates to supply its 

 wants there. Hence, estates with much surrounding jungle are more 

 liable to be infested than others, in the same way as the fields ad- 

 joining the jungle suffer more than the more remote ones. 



With their long sharp incisors they bite aff the smaller and 

 younger branches of the trees, beautifully, regularly, and smooth, and 

 generally one inch or so from the stem, so as to allow them to rest 

 upon the stump whilst they are gnawing it through. Should the plants 

 be quite young, just taken from the nursery, they bite them right off 

 a few inches from the ground. Their object in doing this is, no doubt, 

 first to get, like other rodentia, at the bark, which they do not appear 

 to devour entirely, but simply to masticate for the sake of the juice, 

 but probably they act in this respect in accordance with the state 

 of their appetite ; and secondly to get the leaves for their nests. 

 These latter are commonly found in hollow trees, whither they also 

 drag the bitten-off branches. They seldom appear to eat the berries. 

 They are destroyed either by poison or by traps, in which latter 

 enormous numbers are said to have been caught, There is hardly an 

 estate that does not now and then receive a visit from them. 



A small squirrel, a dark variety of the common palm-squirrel of 

 the low country (^Sciurus three- Vittatus) is commonly found about 

 coffee estates : this does what the rat apparently does not — eats the 

 berries, which, being indigestible with the exception of the outside 

 pulp, are afterwards dropped and found upon logs and on the ground, 



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