Wi^ 
A COCONUT PEST. 
I have received from the Hon. R. Bland. Resident Councillor of 
Malacca, the following letter together with a box of small cater- 
pillars and pupae of a moth doing much damage to Coconut trees 
in Malacca. He writes, “ I am sending you a box containing some 
caterpillars that are devastating the coconut trees at ranjong 
Klincr I noticed the trees were turning a kind of brown colour as 
if scorched with tire. The Malays tell me that the nuts are failing 
off the trees attacked before being ripe. I don .t suppose this is 
any new thing but I never saw so many trees suffering m this way 
before * * * * The bungalow at I'anjong Kling is Idled at night 
with swarms of small white moths perhaps they develop from these 
caterpillars.” 
The box contained a number of portions of the leaflets ot t ie 
coconut, on the underside of which were numerous elliptic scale- 
like coccoons, and in the box were also a number o small cater- 
pillars. These were a little over \ inch long. I he head and first 
two segments were of a dull ocre yellow shining and appeared to 
be larger than the body ; they were fringed with hairs , the body 
was dirty white with a broad black band down the back ending in 
two black spots; two narrower grey lines ran down each side and 
ended in a black spot, the belly was fuscous ; there was a tuft of 
hair on each leg. The coccoons were m rows on the underside 
of the leaf close to the rib, they were elliptic in outline and hU 
over a quarter of an inch long, of rather tough silk. In shape they 
more suggested a very large flat coccus. I he pupa was sott and 
whitish with large black eyes. 
The caterpillars ate short grooves on the under side of the leaves 
through the epidermis exposing the reticulating nervules, w 11c 
turned brown, and the death of the tissue continued to the supper 
surface, so that the leaf above was marked with brown streaks fro 
a quarter to an inch long. They moved about actively and when 
they fell from the leaf produced a long fairly stiff thread ot *Uk by 
which they could lower themselves to the ground or climb up again. 
The greater number seem to have spun up by January 2 $, and e 
gan to hatch out on the 29th of the month. 
The moth is very small just half an inch across the expanded 
wings. The antennae are short and plumed, and with the hea 
blackish brown, the neck lemor. yellow; wings narrow dark sooty 
brown with a narrow yellow edge on both upper and lower ones, 
the body above coloured like the wings, beneath the abdomen an 
thorax and the long slender legs are bright lemon yellow. 
The moth seems to be a species of Euproctis or an allied genus, 
but I am unable to find any account or figure ot it 111 the books at 
my disposal. . 
The insect seems likely to prove very injurious. In a later letter 
Mr. Bland writes “These coconut grubs line the under side ot me 
leaf in thousands. The trees from the 6th to the ptH mile on t 
Tanjong Kling road look as if they had suffered from tne, 1 ne 
