xc. Appendix: — Proceedings of 



I shall first endeavour to describe the Scale insect or Coc- 

 cus of the Coffee tree, or as it is more commonly called, the 

 Coffee Bug, a creature so small and insignificant when ex- 

 amined individually as scarcely to deserve notice, but yet 

 capable of originating most disastrous consequences, when 

 once it has established itself on an Estate; and in short, there 

 is no visitation to which the Coffee Planter is exposed, more 

 dreaded, on account of the diminished crops which ensue, the 

 injury it does to the Plantation, and the uncertainty of its 

 disappearance ; hence the study of the structure and habits 

 of this insect, which is capable of causing so much disap- 

 pointment and even ruin, cannot fail to be a matter of the 

 deepest importance to the Coffee Planter. 



If we take up the leaf of a plant thickly covered with the 

 Bug, we find in the first place that it is of a velvet like black 

 colour, instead of the healthy polished green; and if we thrust 

 our hand into the Coffee bush, we find it covered with a black 

 slimy substance; hence the dark appearance of a Coffee Estate 

 when suffering from the Blight, and the little difficulty there 

 is in recognising it from a distance. 



If we examine this leaf minutely, we find that its black 

 colour is due to a vegetable mould, and that the leaf-stalk 

 and the stem are thickly studded with little lumps or eminences 

 of a brown colour, varying in size from that of a grain of 

 wheat to an almost microscopic object, quite hard to the feel 

 and strongly adherent ; when we detach one of the largest 

 we find, that in doing so a quantity of impalpable dust appears 

 to be let loose, and nothing but a hollow shell remains, but 

 when a quantity of this dust is examined under the microscope, 

 each particle of it is found to be a little ovum or egg, as seen 

 in Jig. I. a., or an exceedingly small and undeveloped living 

 insect, as seen at b, or some of the ruptured egg shells from 

 out of which the latter escaped. Again, if we examine one 

 of the smaller spots on the leaf, we find that externally it 

 bears some resemblance to the large one originally detached, 

 though longer and flatter in proportion, and having its outer 



