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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, F. M. S. 
Dr. W. J. Gallagher, a distinguished student at Queen’s 
College, Cork, and a graduate of *the Royal University of Ireland, 
has been appointed Mycologist to the Department of Agriculture, 
Federated Malay States. He has been engaged in research under 
Dr. HartoG, Professor of Natural History,' Queen’s College, and 
obtained a research studentship from the Commissioners of the 
1851 Exhibition which was renewed on account of the excellence 
of his first year’s work. Dr. Gallagher has spent the last three 
months in a tour of the great Continental Universities to see the 
latest methods of investigation in plant, pathological and mycolo- 
gical laboratories and will take up his duties in the beginning of 
April. 
The laboratories and offices of the Department of Agriculture, 
Federated Malay States, are approaching completion. They a^e 
situated at the Rubber Experiment Plantations, Kuala Lumpur, 
and consist of a two-storey building 130 feet long* containing a 
capacious Chemical laboratory and other laboratories for the Director, 
the Government Mycologist, the Entomologist, the Superintendent’s 
Experiment Station and other Scientific workers as well as Library 
and Offices. 
The Department will be much helped in its work by getting into 
its new quarters the present temporary accommodation, as the 
Institute for Medical Research being quite inadequate, as well being 
four miles from the rubber experimental plots. 
J. B. C. 
1- J O . - 
COCO- NUT BEETLES IN THE PHILIPPINES 
In the “Philippines Journal of Science ” Vol. I, No. 2, p. 143, is an 
useful article on the principal insects injurious to the coco : nut palm 
by Mr. C. S. BANKS. In the Philippines, the rhinoceros beetle Oryctes 
rhinoceros is as troublesome as it is here, and it is charged with 
eating the growing part of the bud when in the larval stage. The 
evidence for this is not very strong and may be doubthd. It has 
never been known to do so here. The plan of creosting the insects 
in and leaving them in the tree is condemned on the ground that the 
decaying beetle would attract ants “ Which in 1 turn would dra\v 
other insects such as white ants,” But this is the very reason for 
leaving the corpse in the hole, it does attract ants and no better 
guardians of the tree could be found, no other rhinoceros beetle, 
weevil or white ants can or will face the carnivorous ants. Where 
ants are seen there is no fear of other pests of this nature. The 
Philippines palm weevil is described and figured and identified as 
Rhynchophorus ferrugineus. It is, however, not identical with that 
of the Straits Settlements, being of quite different coloration and 
habits. 
