310 APPENDIX. 
little leaf diseases, stem bleeding, leaf spot diseases, scale insects, 
and lastly melitomma and rhinoceros beetles established themselves 
in coconut plantations and naturally passed from one tree to the 
other in most cases. It is for example quite surprising to find the 
melitomma bettle, which is a very shy insect, attacking coconut 
stems only and killing out a tree in full bearing and showing hardly 
any external sign except to a trained eye. This insect is indigenous 
in the Seychelles, North Madagascar, Senegal, and South America. 
As already stated the coconut palm is an introduced plant; hence the 
melitomma beetle formerly occurred on other plants in the Seychelles, 
later acquiring the habit of attacking the soft tissues of the coconut 
stem without ever being found on other plants. This has apparently 
been caused by intergrowing plants harbouring insects in coconut 
groves during such a long period of time that the life history of these 
insects has become modified. It is however important before 
arriving at conclusions as to this theory to find out whether in N. 
Madagascar or Senegal the melitomma beetle occurs on other plants. 
The same theory applies in all probability to other insects such as for 
example the scale insect known under the name of Pinnaspis buxi 
which is a scourge at the present moment and which evidently 
escaped from the indigenous screw pines (Pandanus) on which they 
were recorded more than 20 years ago. In many localities serew 
pines are left growing near coconut palms and another pandanus 
such as pandanus utilis is grown to make ‘ Vacoa bags.” 
These remarks justify the desirability of giving much attention 
to the life history of insects when a new jungle is cleared more or less 
completely for the creation of ‘coconut plantations or when intercalary 
crops are grown between the palms.. It is not easy in the tropics 
and especially in small colonies where little capital is available to 
fumigate or spray with insecticides plants of huge size amidst 
boulders and in the jungle. In the majority of cases one has to 
rely on the efforts of nature and look for remedial measures by means 
of natural parasites. 
Another method of combatting pests in the tropics is to provide 
the plant under cultivation with manure which renders it more 
resistant to disease. This is becoming more and more evident in 
Seychelles where at last the practice of manuring has been taken up 
vigorously. Seaweeds are collected and even cropped on the reefs, 
cattle manure, guano, ash, chemical salts and last but not least. 
distillery refuse of cinnamon leaves are all used. 
The occurrence of diseases and pests on coconuts has been found 
to be so closely connected with neglect of plantations that in many 
localities, the land is now cultivated, drained, terraced, green 
manured, and the trees are walled in to prevent the entrance of the 
melitomma beetle or its escape from attacked trees. Also in the 
coral islands the hard pan is broken through at great expense belore 
manuring with phosphatic guano rich in organic matter. It has 
been realised that the occurrence of pests is an index of the state of 
neglect of plantations and as the crop of coconut palms varies very 
considerably from 10 to 200 nuts per tree per annum it is, after all, 
better to have to deal with one good tree than with 20 bad ones. 
~The state of neglect of plantations in former times, however, 
seems to have produced an unexpected result, viz., that a special 
strain of coconut palms has apparently been evolved which is