with golden scales easily rubbed off, and is about half an inch 
long. It is common in many other places besides Perak, but I 
do not remember to have met with it in Singapore. Mr. Wray 
gives it -3 name as perhaps *4. lateralis , but from the figures of A. 
lateralis and A . chrysochloris in Indian Museum Notes, I take it 
to b< chrysochloris. 
The. Banana Weevil, Sphenophorm sordidus, Schonh. — This 
is a vety destructive insect and one not at all unlikely to be over- 
looked, The larva burrows in the stems of the plantains, often 
quite at the base, the stems cease to grow, become weak, the 
leaves turn yellow and the whole stem perishes. When -the 
beetle is abundant the stems are attacked as fast as they push 
up, and eventually the whole plant dies away. On being split 
up the stems and leaf sheaths are found to be tunnelled vertical- 
ly and transversely, grubs and pupae are seen in the tunnels, 
white the full grown beetle is hiding beneath the sheaths, or often 
in the ground at the foot of the plant. When the plantation is 
thoroughly infested, which happens very quickly after the beetle 
makes its appearance, the pest seems almost impossible to eradi- 
cate. The only thing to be done is to cut the plantains down to 
the ground take out the stump, clean it thoroughly and replant it 
in a different plot of ground. All dead stems should be broken 
up and destroyed as the beetle will go on living in them till 
quite rotten. All plantain growers should look over their plants 
at times to see that the pest has not. made its appearance, and 
when stems are seen lo be unhealthy looking, cease their growth 
and fail to give fruit, the leaf sheaths should be stripped off when 
the beetle will probably be found. The bcetie attacks all kinds 
of cultivated plantains, but the common Pisang Kelat though 
not absolutely proof against It is much more rarely attacked than 
other kinds, and I have seen this variety standing unhurt when 
all other kinds surrounding it have been destroyed. The Manila 
Hemp, Musa textilis, is also attacked by it, but to a less extent 
than the eating plantains such as Pisang Mas. 
The beetle is half an inch long, rather flat, entirely black and 
shining. Its curved snout is £ inch long, the head very small, 
conic. The antennas longer than the snout bent and clubbed at 
the ends. The thorax is rather narrow, oblong, conic, polished, 
black and dotted. The wing cases \ inch long and yV hich wide 
blunt and rather narrow grooved and ridged, shorter than the 
abdomen, the legs rather long with sharp spurs near the feet. It 
is sluggish in habit, and only creeping slowly about when dis- 
turbed. The grubs are about half an inch long, white with a red- 
brown head, of the typical weevil form, viz., fleshy and curved, 
thickest in the middle and tapering at the tail, with powerful 
jaws and no legs. The pupa is enclosed in a cylindrical cocoon 
of fibres of the plantain. In fact both grub and pupa closely 
resemble those of the red coco-nut beetle, but on a much smaller 
scale. Together with the common black kind I found another 
kind S. planipennis , Schonh, which, however, is much rarer, in 
which the body, head and thorax were red with black markings. 
