The Hispid Leaf-miner (Coelaenomenodera elaeidis, Maul.) of Oil Palms (Elaeis guineensis, Jacq.) on the Gold Coast.

Oil palms in parts of the oil palm belt in the Gold Coast Colony have suffered at intervals from the attacks of a leaf-mining beetle. Specimens of the adult beetle and full-grown larva were sent by Mr. W. H. Patterson, Government Entomologist to the Gold Coast, to the Imperial Bureau of Entomology in 1920. These were determined by Mr. S. Maulik as a new species of the genus Coelaenomenodera (family Hispidae) and described under the specific name elaeidis (Bull. Ent. Res., x, p. 171). This species is indigenous to the West Coast of Africa, and hitherto has not been recorded outside the Gold Coast, but no doubt occurs throughout the West Coast oil palm belt. According to Mr. Maulik, 32 species of this genus are known, of which four only are recorded from Africa, the remainder being from Madagascar.