Chap. XTL] THE COCO-NUT BEETLE. 



407 



pensable for the due performance of the useful func- 

 tions they discharge. 



The Coco-nut Beetle. — In the luxuriant forests of Ceylon 

 the extensive family of Longicoms 1 and Passalidce 

 live in destructive abundance. To the coco-nut plan- 

 ters the ravages committed by beetles are painfully 

 familiar. 2 The larva of one species of Dynastidce, 

 the Oryctes rhinoceros, called by the Singhalese " Gas- 

 cooroominiya" makes its way into the younger trees, 

 descending from the top, and after perforating them 

 in all directions, forms a cocoon of the gnawed wood 

 and sawdust, in which it reposes during its sleep as a 

 pupa, till the arrival of the period when it emerges as a 

 perfect beetle. Notwithstanding the repulsive aspect of 

 the large pulpy larvae of these beetles, they are esteemed 

 a luxury by the Malabar coolies, who so far avail them- 

 selves of the privilege accorded by the Levitical law, 

 which permitted the Hebrews to eat " the beetle after 

 his kind." 3 



Amongst the superstitions of the Singhalese arising 

 out of their belief in demonology, one remarkable one 

 is connected with the appearance of a beetle when ob- 

 served on the floor of a dwelling-house after nightfall. 

 The popular belief is that in obedience to a certain 

 form of incantation (called cooroominiya-pilli) a demon 



1 The engraving on the pre- beetles. The writer had recently- 

 ceding page represents in its va- passed through several coco-nut 

 rious transformations one of the plantations, "varying in extent 

 most familiar and graceful of the from 20 to 150 acres, and about 

 longicorn beetles of Ceylon, the two to three years old; and in 

 Batocera rubus. these he did not discover a single 



2 There is a paper in the Journ. young tree untouched by the coo- 

 of the Asiat. Society of Ceylon, roominiya." — P. 49. 



May, 1845, by Mr. Capper, on the 3 Leviticus, xi. 22. 

 ravages perpetrated by these 



D D 4 



