418 



THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



increasing the depth of the water until the actual shoots of the heather were 

 submerged. It was very interesting, one might even say exciting, to see the 

 result. In every case a beetle appeared a few minutes after the sod had been 

 placed in water, to be followed every few seconds by another, and so on till 

 they had all been driven out. In this way I examined sixteen samples of 

 diseased heather, and only two of them failed to yield specimens of the beetle ; 

 these failures must, I think, be attributed to the small size of the samples, 

 for they were almost the smallest which I had received, measuring only 12^ 

 and 30 square inches respectively. 



The following table indicate the numbers of beetles obtained from the samples 

 by the above method. 



If these figures are worked out they show an average of 1,437,480, or nearly 

 a million and a half beetles per acre. Thus Lochmcea suturalis, if the cause 

 of the diseased condition, is an important pest, and cannot be ignored. 



It may be of interest to give further extracts from correspondence, to show 

 that the greater part of the evidence either actually supports, or at least is 

 not in conflict with the idea that the heather beetle and not frost is the 

 responsible agent in the devastation of so many acres of heather. 



[aa) "The enclosed . . . larvse I found yesterday on the ground amongst 

 the grass and moss, where the heather is all dead and diseased. I thought 



