MELOLONTHID.., the chafer group of beetles; they are large; their larvae feed on grass, the beetles on the leaves of trees, round which they fly in the evening. Under the name of white grub, one of the insects injurious to coffee 'plants, are included the lame of various Melolouthkim, the cockchafers of Ceylon, which do much harm .to coffee planta tions, 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 has to contend with, as he never knew a single tree recover after their attack ; and they destroyed at Rambodde, in two years, between 8000 and 10,000 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.
The larvae of the moth called Agrostis segetum is the very destructive black grub of the Ceylon coffee-planters. This pest is about an inch long, and is most abundant from August to October. The caterpillar lives in the ground, but comes out at night to feed, and is very common and injuri ous. They attack not only coffee trees, but all
sorts of vegetables and flowers, and are very de structive to gardens and in the field, as they eat• everything that is artificially raised, despising grass and weeds. They generally appear only on certain fields, and will not go over an estate. The insect is not confined to Ceylon ; its ravages are well known in India, at the Cape of Good Hope, and Europe, where it injures the grain and beet-root crops. In Ceylon 'it 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 sometimes par tially dragged under the ground, where the grubs may easily be discovered and dislodged. The damage which they 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 25 pee cent, of the young trees he had put down. '