RAVAGES OF GRUBS. 231 



found in abundance where ravages have been com- 

 mitted by others that have naturally disappeared. 

 It is not improbable that this was the case with a 

 grub of some beetle {Staphylimdo' ?), mentioned by 

 Mr. Walford, and mistaken by him for the wire- 

 worm. Out of fifty acres of wheat sown in 1802, 

 ten had been destroyed in October, by this grub 

 eating into the centre of the young stem an inch 

 below the surface and killing the plant* It seems 

 still more probable that the grub of a native beetle 

 {Zabrus gibbus, Stephens), which has been found 

 in considerable numbers near Worthing, Brighton, 

 Hastings, and Cambridge, has been unjustly blamed 

 as a destroyer of corn ; though we have the respect- 

 able authority of Germar, who, with other members 

 of the Society of Natural History of Halle, imagined 

 he had ascertained the fact. In the spring of 1813, 

 about two hundred and thirty acres of young wheat 

 are said to have been destroyed by it ; and it is fur- 

 ther supposed to be the same insect which caused 

 great destruction in Italy in 1776. This grub is said 

 to take probably three years in coming to a beetle, 

 in which state it is alleged to clamber up the stems 

 at night to get at the corn. It is important to re- 

 mark, that along with these grubs were found those 



a, Zabrus gibbus ; b, Meloloutha ruticoniis. 

 =" Linn. Trans. Ix. 156-61. 



