^7 



As regards remedies for the evil, fumigation is entirely 

 useless in the case of the adult or beetle form ; and as for 

 the larvae, anything which would kill them in situ would 

 certainly kill the plants they are preying upon. The only 

 remedy consequently is a thorough-going hunt, or rather 

 series of hunts, during the beetle season, May to Sep- 

 tember; and to conduct these properly the cunning 

 •of the foe must not be underrated. In the first place, 

 the dull, dark-coloured body of the Weevil is so exactly 

 the colour of ordinary soil that it cannot be distinguished 

 thereon unless in motion. This the Weevil seems 

 instinctively to know, and hence, if startled when on 

 the fronds by a sudden noise or bright light, it is very 

 apt to drop and " play possum " by lying motionless where 

 it falls. I have found, however, that unless the fright be 

 somewhat severe, they simply cling fast where they are 

 and can be easily picked off by the finger and thumb, and 

 executed thereafter in any way convenient. I have caught 

 a large number even in the daytime by means of a table- 

 spoon attached to a long stick. (Quietly inserting the spoon 

 beneath the culprit and then tapping an adjacent stem, 

 it invariably lets go and drops into the spoon, where the 

 "possum" tactics are useless. I have also established 

 the fact that although the grubs can stand immersion for 

 an indefinite time, the beetles cannot do so for more than 

 a few minutes, so that when their presence is suspected in 

 the soil of pot plants, and these be immersed in a pail over 

 the pot edges, all Weevils present immediately climb up out 

 of the water and can thus be easily seen and destroyed. 



So far as the larvae are concerned, any plants which 

 show signs of their presence by flagging should at once be 

 shaken out and the roots washed ; the snow-white maggots 

 will then be seen and destroyed, and the plants, if re-potted, 

 may probably recoxer. 



With rhizome-forming ferns, such as Polypodium vulgaye 



