have been removed, a mat bag should be put over the top to keep 

 off rain till the new shoot appears. This was done successfully in 

 the Gardens to a fine Orcodoxa regia, which was badly infested and 

 which very soon recovered and is now a fine tree. 



Another much larger species of Rhynchophorus, entirely bright 

 red above and black beneath is not rare attacking adult palms es- 

 pecially Oncospermas. It should bed estroyed in the same manner. 



The trees usually attacked by these beetles are Oncospermas* 

 Verschaffeltia, Stevensonia, Archontophcenix, Cocos, Atta/ea, Oreo- 

 doxa, Livistona, Sagus, Phoenix. I have never seen Arecas, Licua/as, 

 Pinangas, or the smaller palms attacked. 



The Rhinoceros beetle damages palms in the same way, but in 

 this case it is only the adult which burrows into the shoot, and so 

 destroys the palm. The larvae usually live in cowdung or decaying 

 leaves or wood, and piles of this in a garden may produce a crop 

 of these pestilential insects. These beetles should be looked for 

 when a palm either exudes a gummy material from the bud, or 

 there are signs of the mass of fibre torn up by the beetles among 

 the leafsheaths. The insect can then be speared with a bamboo 

 spear, and a little salt thrown into the hole will keep away others. 

 It is a good plan to leave the dead beetle in the hole it has made, 

 as the corpse attracts ants and these keep off the next comer. 



Occasionally a palm in a tub looks sickly from no very clear 

 reason, but if the eartii be turned out of the tub, it will be found 

 full of the grubs of a small chafer, dirty blackish looking grubs 

 with a brown hard head. These are the larvae of Cetonica Mandari- 

 nea, a small dark olive black chafer with gold markings, which is 

 usually to be found not. far off the infected plant eating the leaves 

 of other plants or shrubs. These grubs eat the roots of the palms 

 and so make them sickly. The plant should be turned out of its 

 pot or tub and the soil changed, and the grubs destroyed. 



There ate several very troublesome kinds of beetles which attack 

 palms especially young ones and pot palms, by burrowing in the 

 sheath of the leaves. The palm looks sickly and the leaves when 

 produced are spotted and injured. These small beetles belong to 

 the group Hispidsc. One Oxycephcdus y sp. is a little over \ inch 

 long, the antennae | inch or less black, head small black, thorax 

 raw, sienna oblong punctate, Elytra narrow much longer, black, 

 with about eight longitudinal ribs with a row of dots between 

 each rib. Legs short reddish. Body every flat, a somewhat simi- 

 . lar insect living with this is a species of Wallacca. 



Besides these there is one if not more species of small flattened 

 weevils which live between the sheaths of the palms and the shoot. 

 The larvae of one species is -f\ T inch long, thick, cylindric and mag- 

 got-like, sprinkled with a few hairs white, head pale brown. The 

 beetle is long with a fairly long beak, and small dark brown head, 

 thorax long, conic, punctate, black. Elytra black, truncate, shorter 

 than the body, 5-6 ribbed punctate with a yellow spot on each 



