269 



THE WEEVIL AS A FERN FOE. 



A good many years ago, when my little book on 

 "Choice British Ferns" was published under the auspices 

 of Mr. L. I'pcott Gill, I was severely taken to task, and 

 justly so, by several fern-loving friends for having omitted 

 the Weevil {Otiovhyncns sulcatus) from my list of fern foes, 

 the simple fact being that, singularly enough, up to that 

 date my collection had entirely escaped. So far, however, 

 from the Weevil showing any gratitude for my omission 

 either to vilify him or to indicate means for his extirpation, 

 no long time elapsed before I begun to perceive mysterious 

 holes in, and bits out of, my choicest frilled and crested 

 Hartstongues, while now and again other species, such as 

 Lady Ferns and Male Ferns, developed their fronds in a 

 curiously faulty fashion, pinnaj and parts of pinna' failing 

 here and there in a way I could not attribute to their 

 innate capacity of variation. Day after day I searched 

 assiduously for the malefactor, but found nothing but 

 fresh holes and wider dilapidations without a trace of the 

 cause. Late one evening, however, I glided into my 

 fernery with a light, a visiting friend having very con- 

 siderately congratulated himself on finding a fellow -sufferer 

 from the semi-nocturnal Weevil, and there, sure enough, I 

 found several of the depredators hard at work nibbling 

 away merrily at my ferny pets in a ruthless fashion 

 peculiar to them and their succulent friends, the cater- 

 pillars. Thereafter not a night passed without a thorough 

 hunt, the number of captures gradually decreased to the 

 vanishing-point, and the damage eventually ceased. The 

 following spring, however, amongst other similar cases, a 

 small pan of very choice seedling Athyria began to Hag in 

 a most unaccountable manner, and presently a number 

 of fronds fell over, being quite severed from the roots. 

 At first I took this for the too familiar sign of the presence 

 of the leather-coated grub of the Daddy Long-legs 



