13S THE TROPIC Ali 
cinchona leaves, while the tea leaf they 
devour, from the toughest to the tenderest. 
Still, an insect of this kind attaining an 
appreciable size can be dealt with as a local 
matter ; a deep trench may perhaps prevent 
its crossing from one field to another, as its 
locomotion is so slow and altogether it is a 
very different matter from a fungus pest 
blown about by the wind, or even from helo- 
peltis which spread and multiply so quickly 
and resist wind. JStill such insects as the pre- 
sent one can do much harm while their 
day lasts— ten acres of tea stripped to the 
bare stems and branches (no wood is touched) 
is no joke ; but in Darjiling we read in one 
year of a ]00 acres of young tea loeing 
destroyed as soon as planted by a sudden 
ovitburst of a white grub beetle. Wa can 
see nothing in Cotes' "'Tea Insects of India"' 
to answer to the MoraAvak Korale visitor. 
We are inclined to think it must be of the 
weevil family, and here is what Nietuer 
says of one of the kind which had consumed 
every leaf of coffee on fields in Maturata : — 
Arhines (?) destructor. 
This is a beautiful greea weevil, 2.J'" long and 1" 
broad, oval, narrowed in front, covered all over 
with 'closely set but isolated gold-green scales, 
winged. The head is rather short and blunt ; an- 
tennee. apical, elbowed at the middle, the part 
beyond the middle being composed of eleven joints, 
forming a club towards the end, the third joint 
from the tip being the thickest : tliey are brown, 
hairy beyond the middle ; the thorax is plump, 
subcorneal ; the anterior legs are the longest, tlie 
second pair the shortest, the tiba? and tarsi of 
all are hairy, the tarsi with hairy brushes under- 
neath, especially thick at the tliird joint which 
is deeply 2-lobed ; the tibia? of the second pair 
are long, serrated inside, curved and 2-liooked at 
the apex. The insect varies considerably in si^^e 
and colour. 
This pretty beetle is common during the dry 
weather, but I have never found it do any injury 
to the coffee. Mr. .James Rose, of Maturata, 
who first directed my attention to it, ^^'rote 
to me " The mischief they do to the 
coffee is really frightful, and if thev were 
as plentiful as the bug, they would 1)0 
our worst enemies. Five or six acres were com- 
pletely covered with them, and they consumed 
almost every leaf. Year after year they appeared 
upon the same place. This year they appeared 
upon a neigiiboming estate in great force, and 
ran over at least forty acres. Tlie same thing- 
occurred on three other estates." Mr. Rose con- 
veys a pretty picture to the mind of the entomo- 
logist by stating, that in May, when these insects 
disappear, the logs and rocks may be seen strewed 
with their bright green elytra. 
The family of ti\e weevils is one of the most 
extensive amongst the beetles, and many of its 
members both here and in Europe do much in- 
iury to agricultural produce. I lin ve seen nearly the 
whole sweet potato (Bafataa cduUs) crop of the 
Negombo district destroyed by one of them, the 
Cylas turcipen7ds. The common rice-weevil, Sito- 
nhilus oryzae, is another instance, and one of the 
coconut destroyers of the low-country belongs 
also to this family, the Sphoenophorsus plani- 
^Ve^now await further specimens from the 
Morawak Korale to send to Mr. Haly of the 
Museum to examine under the microscope. 
TEA-DRINKING IN RUSSIA. 
(Special for ''Ceylon Observer") 
"With regard to Russian tea and tea-drink- 
ing," a young engineer and surveyor, who 
was recently Assistant Engineer to a large 
AGRICULTURIST. [SErx. 1, 1890. 
Railway Survey party in Eastern Russia, 
writes to us by this mail:— "The tea comes from 
China principally and is brought overland. 
I suppose the [Siberian] Railway will carry 
it soon. A Russian offers you tea immedi- 
ately you go to see him, whatever hour of 
the day or night it may be. The samovar 
— a big brass kettle soup-tureen arrangement 
— is brought in, full of boiling water which 
is kept at boiling point by red-hot charcoal 
in a hollow inside. The tea is made in a 
small China tea-pot — abuut one to two inches 
deep of tea is poured into a glass tumbler and 
the rest is filled up with water from the 
samovar ; a slice or two of lemon put in, and 
a couple of lumps of sugar thrown in, com- 
]>letes it. It is \ ery weak, of coui'se, with so 
nui'-h w;iter: but they swill so much of it 
that if it was strong they could not stand 
it. It is more straw coloured than English 
tea. It wants some practice to hold the 
glass, because it is jolly hot ; the spoon al- 
ways stops in the glass and the first finger of 
the hand holding the glass holds the spoon 
against the side opposite one's mouth when 
drinking. I understand that the Ladies of 
tiie higher aristocracy now drink it out of 
cups and with milk. Not being acquainted 
with any L's of the H. A., I have not seen this." 
[Our correspondent's last letter ap- 
peared in our issue of January 24th, and his 
account of further experiences of railway 
surveying in Asia Minor will be given in 
another issue. — Ed. T.A.] 
West India Fruits.— Tiie report of theCom- 
inission wliich was sent to the West Indian Islands 
ti) inc|uire into the causes of the bankrupt condi- 
tii)n of the various industries in the colony was 
published in these columns at the time of its issue, 
and it was felt that the Government would be jus- 
tified in holding out a helping hand in order that 
a fresh stai t in life might be given to people who 
had suffered Img and struggled maafully against 
adverse fortune. There had been too much of the 
one-basket system ; our Government is about to 
help to inaugurate a new state of things, and we 
may here briefly epitomise what it is the Colonial 
Department has made up its mind to do. Aeon- 
tract has been sitjned by Mr. Chamberlain with the 
Jamaica Fruit and Produce. Association for 
direct fruit and passenger service between this 
country and Jamaica, and there are now four 
steamers being built on the Clyde and the East 
Coast to run between Southampton and Jamaica, 
the running to begin in May of next year. This 
contract will last for five years, and the ships will 
run fortnightly. The steamers will be fitted for 
fruit carriage, and will have storage sufficient for 
at least 20,000 bunches of bananas ; a few passen- 
gers will also be carried. The subsidy proposed 
to be paid is £10,000 per annum, of which the 
Government will contribute half, to be increased 
to £12,000 if more passenger accommodation is 
required. Of course fruit other than bananas 
may be ea,rried, but taste seems to have set that 
way, and we are asked to believe that 3 lb weight 
of baked bananas are quite equal to seven times 
that weight of wheaten bread. It is further 
stated tiiat banana flour may be profitably utili- 
sed for the nursery as well as the adult cuisine ; 
but the flour could, of course, be most profitably 
manufactured where the fruit is produced, as 
sugar where the cane is ripened. — Gardeners^ 
Chronicle, J uly 15. 
