Feb. I, 1901.] 
Supplemmt to the ''Tropical Agriculturist." 
those of Dr. Bachofeii being 3 '7 % and io'Qo % 
respectively. Mr. Coclu-au cites the case of 
the mangel, a plant with a strong predeliction 
for salt, (its roots containing no le=s tiian 45 %, 
and its leaves 37 % of sodium chloride) as being 
greatly benefited by applications of common salt 
together with the fertilizers, and makes the 
following important statement: "From the 
evidence before us, I am disposed to consider the 
coconut trees as one of the special cases in which 
salt is useful as a manure." 
With thi opinioii of two of the three analytical 
chemists in our midst to guide him, the coconut 
planter cannot surely hesitate any further to 
recognise the importance of using potash salts 
together with common salt in the manuring of his 
palms. 
It would be interesting to ascertain the views 
of Mr. Kelway Bamber who has just established 
himself iu a new laboratory in Colombo, as 
Government-cum-Planter's Chemist. Mr. Bamber 
has come to us with a made reputation as an 
authority on the Chemistry of tea, being an Agri- 
cultural Cliemisfc of high qualifications, his views 
■with regard to the manuring of coconuts should 
prove most valuable. Where, we ask, is tlie 
Association tliat can come to the aid of the low- 
country planters? Ths, consideration of the sub- 
jects, as set in for above shows tlie valuable work 
that n low-country planter's association, if formed, 
is able to undertake- We have now a number of 
technical officers wlio are capable of giving very 
good advice. But the coconut planter has no 
organized body through which he can indicate 
his wimts. This is a state of things that require 
early attention, and the low-country planters have 
to blame themselves if they do not utilize the 
advantages offered to them. — " Ceylon Standard. 't 
INTRODUCTION TO ENTOMOLOGY. 
(Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod.) 
Insects begin their lives either by being 
hatched from eggs, or produced alive by the 
female; commonly they are hatched in the 
form known as maggots, caterpillars, or grubs, 
but they are never generated by the decaying 
■vegetable>', putrid water, bones, carcase?, dung, 
or any other matter, dead or alive, excepting their 
own insect forerunners. They come out of these 
mutters constantly, but, if the observer will 
■watch, he m;\y often see the arrival of the insects, 
the laying of the eggs, and be able to satisfy him- 
self as to the gradual development and the method 
of breeding, and that the progeny is produced by 
the female insect. 
The eggs are usually laid soon after the pairing 
of the mule and female, and are deposited on or 
near whatever may be the food of the larvae. 
They are laid singly or in patches, and are 
sometimes attached by a gummy secretion to the 
le-.if or whatever they are laid on ; occasionally 
they are fastened by a short thread, or raised 
(like the heads of pins) on a stiff foot-stalk of 
hardened viscid matter. Such insects as insert 
their eggs in living animal or vegetable matter 
are furnished with a special egg-laying apparatus 
or ovipositor, such as a borer, or organs enclosing 
bristle-like points on saws, by means of which the 
female pierces a hole, and passes the egg down 
into the wounded spot. 
For the most part insect eggs hatch shortly 
after they are laid, but sometimes they remain 
unhatched during the water ; and it is believed 
that, where circumstances are unfavourable to 
development, they may remain unhatclied for 
years, but this point is one of tliost subjects on 
which more information is needed. Tliey have 
been found to endure intense cold without injury, 
and, besides some special and extraordinary 
instances, it has been found by experiment that 
insect-eggs may be exposed to a temperature 
lower than that to which they are usually sub- 
jected in this country, and cold enough to solidify 
their contents without destroying their powers of 
hatching. 
In a very few cases insects are partly developed 
before birth, otherwise, after hatching from the 
egg, or being produced alive (in tiie same first 
stage of development) by the female, insects pass 
their lives in three different conditions or stages 
successively. 
The first is that in which they are known as 
maggots, grubs, or caterpillars ; in the case of 
grasshoppers, cockroaches and some other insects, 
where the young are very much the same shape as 
the parent, only without wings, they usually go 
by the parent's name ; the young of greenfly 
are sometimes known as '• lice." In this state 
they are active, voracious, and increase in size ; 
and in this first stage all insects are scientifically 
termed larvfe. 
In the second stage some orders of insects are 
usually inactive and cannot feed, as is the case 
with the chrysalis of the butterfly, or the mum- 
my-like form of the beetle or wasp with its 
limbs in distinct sheaths folded down beneath 
it ; some, hovi'ever, are active and feed, as 
grasshoppers, cockroaches, aphides (or green 
fly) and others, and resemble the parent insect, 
excepting that their wings and, for the most part, 
their wing cases are not as yet fully formed ; 
and in this second stage all insects are scienti- 
fically termed pupoe. 
The thirds tage is that of the perfect insect, 
in which (whether male or female, or of whatever 
different kind, as Moth Beetle, Cricket, Aphis. 
&c.,) it is scientifically termed an imago. 
The term Larva is from the Latin, meaning a ask 
or ghost, and signifies that the insect in his 
stage gives a mere vague idea of its perfect form. 
Pupa signifies an infant, and is fairly appro- 
priate to the second stage in which the insect is 
forming into the perfect state, but is not fully 
developed either in its limbs or functions. 
Imago signifies the image, the likeness, or au 
example of ihe perfect insect. The appropriate- 
ness of the scientific names for the first and third 
stage does not seem very clear, but there is no 
doubt of the convenience of having some one term 
by which each different stage of lifw of any insect 
may be described ; and these are the words 
that have been adopted ; in the following pages 
some detail is given of these three successive 
stages of development. 
