9 2 



A COCONUT PEST. 



I have received from the Hon. R. Bland, Resident Councillor of 

 Malacca, the following letter together with a box of small cater- 

 pillars and pupae of a moth doing much damage to Coconut trees 

 in Malacca. ITe writes, "I am sending you a box containing some 

 caterpillars that are devastating the coconut trees at Tanjong 

 Kling. I noticed the trees were turning a kind of brown colour as 

 if scorched with lire. The Malays tell me that the nuts are falling 

 off the trees attacked before being ripe. I don't suppose this is 

 any new thing but I never saw so many tree.^ suite ring in this way 

 before. * "* * * The bungalow at Tanjong Kling is filled at night 

 with swarms of small white moths perhaps they develop from these 

 caterpillars. " 



The box contained a number of portions of the leaflets of the 

 coconut, on the underside of which were numerous elliptic scale- 

 like coccoons, and in the box were also a number of small cater- 

 pillars. These were a little over \ inch long. The head and first 

 two segments were of a dull ocre yellow shining, and appeared to 

 be larger than the body; they were fringed with hairs; the body 

 was dirty white with a broad black band down the back ending in 

 two black spots; two narrower grey lines ran down each side and 

 ended in a black spot, the belly was fuscous; there was a tuft of 

 hair on eacli leg. The coccoons were in rows on the underside 

 of the leaf close to the rib, they were elliptic in outline and little 

 over a quarter of an inch long, of rather tough silk. In shape they 

 more suggested a very large flat coccus. The pupa was soft and 

 whitish with large black eyes. 



The caterpillars ate short grooves on the under side of the leaves 

 through the epidermis exposing the reticulating nervules, which 

 turned brown, and the death of the tissue continued to the upper 

 surface, so that the leaf above was marked with brown streaks from 

 a quarter to an inch long. They moved about actively and when 

 they fell from the leaf produced a long fairly stiff thread of silk by 

 which they could lower themselves to the ground or climb up again. 

 The greater number seem to have spun up by January 25, and be- 

 gan to hatch out on the 29th of the month. 



The moth is very small just half an inch across the expanded 

 wings. The antenna? are short and plumed, and with the head 

 blackish brown, the neck lemor yellow; wings narrow dark sooty 

 brown with a narrow yellow edge on both upper and lower ones, 

 the body above coloured like the wings, beneath the abdomen and 

 thorax and the long slender legs are bright lemon yellow. 



The moth seems to be a species of Euproctis or an allied genus, 

 but I am unable to find any account or figure of it in the books at 

 my disposal. 



The insect seems likely to prove very injurious. In a later letter 

 Mr. BLAND writes " These coconut grubs line the under side of the 

 leaf in thousands. The trees from the 6th to the 9th mile on the 

 Tanjong Kling road look as if they had suffered from lire. The 



