m 
laid on the leaves or oftener on the stem of the banana. They 
are bun-shaped, white with pink stripes, radiating from the top 
downwards . The caterpillars when hatched are pale green with 
rather a large black head. When full grown they are about 3 
inches long, sea-green with a large round black head, sprinkled 
over with hairs and covered with a white floury substance. They 
live in rolled up portions of the banana leaf, and by tearing and 
rolling up the leaf, destroy far more than they actually eat. The 
rolled up portion in which the grub lives is covered inside with 
the white floury substance which appears to act as a protection 
against rain water, which is apt to accumulate in the rolled up 
tube of the leaf. The substance being of a waxy nature prevents 
the water touching the animal s skin. It also acts to a certain 
extent as a protection against animal enemies, such as ants, which 
I have observed on attempting to bite the caterpillar and get- 
ting a mouthful c the waxy substance soon abandoned the at- 
tack. The caterpillar pupates in the rolled up leaf. The chry- 
salis is rather long for the size of the butterfly, and is also covered 
with the waxy secretion. This animal is so abundant that in 
most places it is difficult to find a banana which has not been at- 
tacked by it. It lives on all kinds of bananas including Manilla 
hemp {Musa textilis) and the wild Musas, also on coco-nuts and 
other palms. I have seen banana plants quite torn to pieces by 
this caterpillar, the leaves reduced to the -mid rib and a row of 
rolls on each side, but as a rule unless very abundant the damage 
they do to the plant is trifling. It is however advisable to des- 
troy them, which is easily done by handpicking. The butterfly 
usually flies in the evening and sometimes even comes into light. 
In some places a very similar but larger skipper, Gangara thyr - 
sis, attacks bananas in the same way, but as a rule it is a less com- 
mon insect. 
The Coffee-hawk Moth { Cephonodes Hylas). 
The >rmous amount of damage caused to the coffee in the 
past two years by the bee-hawk moth { Cephonodes Hylas), espe- 
cially in Selangor, in the neighbourhood of Petaling, has caused 
so much alarm, that some account of the pest, its life-history and 
the means used to destroy it must be of interest to many persons 
residing in the East. In compiling this account of it, I have 
availed myself of the notes made by Mr. A. L. Butler of Selan- 
gor Museum, whose observations I publish in extinso and by 
Mr. J. Goodenough, Forest Inspector, and what information 
I could glean from planters in the district, during my visit to the 
infected estates in February, 1899, I also saw an outbreak of 
the same plague some years ago on the Chasseriau Coffee Estate 
in Singapore, where however, the damage was not so severe. 
Description of the Moth. — The moth belongs to the group of the 
Sphingidce (a group, as Mr. Butler points out, any members of 
which have very seldom been reported as causing any apprecia- 
ble damage to crops of any kind), and it is closely allied to the 
English Bee-hawks characterized by their transparent wings. It 
