Caught!

Insect is Cause of Mysterious “Nutfall”

From Our Own Correspondent.

Tulagi, May 11.

THE problem of “nutfall” —a serious one for many plantations over a long period—seems now to have been solved.

A nocturnal “bug,” called the Amapelta, has been found guilty. It only remains to find the right parasite for “Emma Pelter,” and the “nutfall” situation will be well in hand.

This wicked “wog” has been able to elude detection, partly by reason of its nocturnal habits, and party because experts commenced their investigations already convinced that soil conditions were the cause of the trouble. Local people believed from their own observations and experiments that soil conditions

were not wholly to blame, and that an opinion formed by experts in London with out any investigation on the spot could not be accepted as final.

With the aid of our two entomologists, insects were taken in hand scientifically, careful experiments and observations conducted, coconut branches enclosed in cages, trees provided with thermometers and accessories like an expensive limousine. Daily observations were taken for a long time with no result, till, by good fortune, our little night-marauder, the Amapelta, was caught on a Guadalcanal estate that had been particularly affected with “nutfall.”

It is distinctly a feather in the cap of our local scientists, and another triumph for entomology.