XXVI. 



NOTES ON INSECTS OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE DURING 



THE YEAR 1882. 



By Eleanor A. Ormeeod, F.M.S. 



Read at Watford, 20th March, 1883. 



I HAVE now the pleasure again to lay before the Society some 

 approach to a report of observations on insect life, made in the 

 county by members during the past season, but I much regret that 

 it is unavoidably very short from the small amount of available 

 material in my hands. Mr. Silvester has been good enough to note 

 some observations of interest, including a very practical one on 

 turnip-fly ; Mr. John Hopkinson also notes the great injury to 

 foliage by the ravages of caterpillars ; and a few records have been 

 sent in of first appearances. I regret not to be able to add to this 

 report from other sources, as all the notes I have received from 

 contributors in the county which have been sent to me as matters 

 of business, are not of course available ; and the very interesting 

 comparative report on insect-appearances in 1881 and 1882, by Mr. 

 Willis of Harpenden, will be given by its author as a separate paper. 



To proceed now with our report, Mr. Silvester says, with regard 

 to turnip-fly : "I am glad to be able to report an entire immunity 

 from the attack of turnip-fly this year in the swede crop. I 

 attribute this to the genial weather at the time that the bulk 

 of the crop was sown ; germination and after- growth being of 

 too rapid a character to render the young plants liable to injury. 

 I was rather later in sowing white turnips than usual, owing to 

 a protracted hay-time, and as a diy season set in after the seed was 

 sown, the fly got too strong a hold on the crop, and only half a 

 plant was the result." This note will be observed to be of sound 

 practical use, for it draws attention to the way in which in 

 suitable weather the plant outgrows the attack of the enemy, 

 whilst in adverse circumstances, as the weakly plant cannot re- 

 place daily up to the amount the insect eats away, the crop 

 necessarily suffers or perishes, and it thus confirms the observations 

 of 1881 as to the importance of securing a good seed-time if 

 possible, but at any rate by a good seed-bed, and all available 

 agricultural measures to secure a state of things calculated to push 

 on a good growth. 



Mr. Silvester further mentions : "In July I sowed a patch of 

 cabbage-seed, it all came up well, but on looking at it a few days 

 afterwards I found that just half the bed had been destroyed." In 

 this case the aggressor was not discovered, but it was doubtful 

 whether slugs were not to blame ; and further on at the end of 

 the year Mr. Silvester mentions : "I am sorry to remark that the 

 wheat is coming up very badly in some fields and the slugs are 

 very busy destroying it in places." 



Wireworm is mentioned as not having been at all destructive on 



