The Black Buy is Lecanium nigrum, but the female only is known. In colour it is from yellow ish-grey to deep brown, and almost black in age, and of a shield-like shape. It occurs alone, but also intermixed with the brown bug ; but it is much less abundant, and therefore not demanding, the planter's attention. Its occupation of a coffee or auy other tree gives rise to tile appearance of a glutinous saccharine substance,which has received the name of honey-dew. This is either a secretion of the bug, or the extravasated mp which flows from the wounded tree, or probably a combination of both. A fungus, or two funi, tho Synchulium Nietueri and Triposporium Gardneri, seem to depend on this for vegetation, as tho honey-dew and the fungus disappear with the bug-.
Another bug, the Strachia geometrica, of a yellowish colour, but marked with grey and orange on the upper side, was found at Badulla. It feeds upon the juice of the young berries, three per cent. or more of 'licit were said to have suffered from it. It is allied to the green or fcetid bug; but though it may occasionally cause destruc tion, there is no fear of it ever becoming a serious nitisan ce.
One of the A.phidm, A phis coffem, the Coffee Louse, is found in small communities on the young shoots and on the under-side of the leaves of the cocoanut tree, but the injuries it occasions are insignificant Several caterpillars, the Aloa lactinea, the 0 rgyia Ceylanica, Euproctis virguncula, the Trichia exigua, Narosa conspersa, the Limacodes graciosa, and a species of Drepana, are found on the coffee trees, but they do not cause much injury. Another caterpillar, however, though fortunately not abundant, the Zeuzera coffeae, destroyed many trees, both young and old, by eating out the heart. It resembles the caterpillar of the goatmoth of England, and is as thick as a goose quill. It generally enters the tree 6" or 12" from the ground, ascending upwards. The sickly drooping of the tree marks its presence.
Black Grub. — The larva of the moth called Agrostis segetum is the very destructive black grub. This pest is about an inch lona, and is most abundant from August to October. The caterpillar lives in the ground, .but corne,s out at night to feed. and is very common and injurious. It attacks not only coffee trees, but all sorts of vegetables and flowers, and is very destructive to gardens and in the field, as it eats everything that is artificially raised, despising grass and weeds. It generally appears only on certain fields, and will not go over an estate. The insect is not con
fined to Ceylon ; its ravages are well known in India, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Europe, where it injures the grain and beetroot crops. In Ceylon it only attacks young coffee trees, gnawing off the bark round the stem just above the ground. Where the trees are very small, they are bitten right off, and the tops somethnes partially dragged uuder the ground, where the grubs may easily be discovered and dislodged. The datnage which &ley-inflict on plantations may be estimated, when it is mentioned that Mr. Nietner lost through them in one season, in certain fields, as many as twenty-five per cent. of the young trees he had put down.
The larva of a little moth, the Galleriomorpha lichenoides, and three caterpillars of the Boarmia leucostigmaria, B. Ceylanica, and Empithecia coffcaria, are found on coffee trees and other plants from Sep,teinber to December.
The larva of 'the Gracillaria coffeifoliella mines the coffee leaves ; it is very common, but of ne importance to the planter.
The ravages of the large, well-known, beautiful toeust, the Phymatea punctata, with its scarlet abdomen and yellow and bronze above, are not continuous in the coffee trees,i, be btoccasionally very annoying. A swarrn inip-Kfiehl of one-year-old coffee, and gnawed off the steins, causing them to throw out marly shoots, and permanently disfigured five per cent. of the trees. They do not touch the Illuk grass, Saccha rum Konigii, 1?etz. but seem only to attack cultivated plants and trees. At Tangalle they destroyed tobacco plantations, and at Matinee in Kandy the native grain crops were injured by these locusts. The larvae and pupm are as destruc tive as the perfect insects ; but this seems, fortu nately, the only speciei-of locust that does any real injury in Ceylon, and this injury is in import ance not to be compared with that done by other species in other countries.
White Grub.—Under this name are included the larvm of various Melolonthidie, the cockchafers of Ceylon, which do mueltharm to coffee plantations, young and old, by eating the roots of the trees. Mr. J. L. Gordon of Rambodde considered the white grub to be by far the greatest enemy of the coffee trees which the planter had to contend with, as he never knew a single tree recover after their attack • and he adds that they had destroyed, at Rambo'dde, in two years, between eight and ten thousand trees of fine old coffee. Mr. Gordon used to dig up the soil at the foot of the trees, and take out such grubs as he could find.