The injuries from other animals are not serious. A squirrel, the Mums Layardi, which eats the coffee berries, is common on estates ; the pulp alone is digestible, and the coffee beans are dropped on logs of wood and on the ground. Jackals and monkeys occasionally do the same ; this is called parchment coffee. A deer will now and then come from the forest and nibble the tops of the young trees.
Mantis tricolor, Nietner, the Mantis of the coffee tree, is green, lower wings reddish, with large blackish spot at the posterior margin. The female is 1 inch long, with lj inch of an expanse of wings. The male is considerably smaller. The eggs are deposited upon coffee leaves, in cocoon like masses of of an inch in length, but drawn out further at each end. As to the remedies to all these plagues, Mr. Nietner tells us that several means of checking the extension of the bug have been proposed and tried. Amongst these, the in troduction of the red ant ; but their bites are so fierce and painful, that the coolies refuse to go amongst the trees while the ants are there. Rubbing off the bug by hand has been tried, but it can only be attempted upon young trees without crop ; Mr. Nietner, although allowing that an immense quantity of bug is thus destroyed, is nevertheless of opinion that the effect is but trifling. He thinks that the applica tion of tar to the roots is a good suggestion, although he is obliged to admit that hitherto no important results have been achieved by it. He adds that high cultivation seems to have the effect of throwing it off. But as the bug seems to depend on locality, Mr. Nietner does not look for any beneficial result so long as the physical aspect is unchanged. He thinks that if the open, warm,
airy pattenas were cultivated, which the experi ments on a large scale, tried at Passelawa, show that they can be, the brown bug, which is the great destroyer, would not find the conditions favourable to its existence ; or perhaps, if estates as a rule were made smaller than they generally are, if the reduction in acreage were counterbalanced by a higher system of cultivation, universally carried out, the bug would not be so numerous as it now is (Mr. Nietner). In the Peninsula of India, borer is a name given to the larva of certain coleopterous beetles, which injure coffee trees. There are two, the white and red borer, and the chief of these is the Xylotrechus quadripes of Chevrolat. The largo and rapid introduction of coffee-growing into Ceylon and India has shown that the plant is liable to be attacked by many enemies, and ighorance of that has been the cause of much loss. Coffee trees in Coorg have also been injured by the rot, a disease resulting from improper pruning. The rot attacks and decays the centre of the stem. In Coorg, when the tree is attacked by the borer, the leaves become yellow and droop. The insects are generally about the diameter of a small quill, are always confined to the wood, and never enter the bark until the larva has done its work, passed through the pupa stage, and is about to escape in the form of a beetle. The eggs are deposited by the females near the root of the tree, and the pupa borers tunnel up the heart of the plant.—Nietner ; Dr. Bidie on Coffee Planting. See Coffee.
BUG of Nana. See Arras.