270 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
large, dirty, white, fat grubs, sparsely covered with 
brown hairs. In burrowing through the ground at the 
foot of the pepper vine they bite through the roots 
with their powerful jaws. The application of lime-water 
in the neighbourhood of the roots is considered effectual 
in driving them away. 
Bosscha mentions another insect of the Lamelli- 
cornia group which attacks the roots in much the same 
way, but is apparently a kind of cockchafer. It flies 
at night in great numbers together, and Mr. Hewitt 
suggests might be caught by light-traps. The larvae 
attack the roots underground in some numbers, and the 
leaves turn yellow and fall off. Traps for this class 
of insects are made by filling a large pan of metal or 
earthenware with water, to which a little kerosene has 
been added. A lamp is placed above this, and the 
insects flying to the light fall in the water and the 
kerosene which floats on the top kills them. An im- 
provement is to put a sheet of glass vertically below 
the lamp over the water, as the insects strike against 
this in their flight and readily fall into the trap. 
Grasshoppers, and the big yellow and green locusts 
with pink hind wings, Cyrtanthacris varia, also attack 
the shoots of the pepper and devour them or bite them 
through. The smaller grasshoppers are difficult to 
catch, but the locusts can easily be destroyed by children 
chasing them and knocking them down with sticks or 
wooden bats. Spraying with tobacco water will kill 
the smaller grasshoppers. Insects of this group usually 
spend the earlier stages of their life in low herbage or 
grass, and the cutting down and burning of this in the 
vicinity of the plantation will cause a great diminution 
in the numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets. 
Leaf -eating Caterpillars. — Mr. Hewitt mentions 
the attacks of the caterpillar of a Limacodid moth, 
which, however, he only met once devouring the leaves. 
He describes it as an oval green caterpillar, disk- shaped, 
beset laterally with stinging hairs or processes, and 
indeed covered with these hairs. A similar insect, if 
