BEET MOTH. 



145 



creasing amount of insect attack is in part because of 

 the constantly wider spread of cultivated land. There 

 is much greater amount of special crops, such as 

 special insects feed on ; and instead of there being, as 

 in wild districts, perhaps, one plant in a hundred that 

 may suit the caterpillar, there are districts all through 

 the country where nine-tenths of the growth are its 

 chosen food. If, therefore, in addition to the crop 



Fig. 115. — Beet Moth, caterpillar, and chrysalis in cocoon." 



food, we let weed food collect in our borders, we add 

 most needlessly to our troubles ; and by clearing and 

 burning these patches round garden and fields we may 

 do a deal of good. 



The enormous appetite — or necessity for eating — of 

 some of these great caterpillars may be used as a 

 means of getting rid of them. Where land has been 

 infested with Turnip caterpillar, it has been found 

 that by ploughing and cultivating it so that there is 

 no food, and letting it thus remain for a fortnight, 

 the caterpillars may be starved out, or will go else- 

 where. 



• It will be observed that this caterpillar is what is sometimes called 

 a " half-lo(iper." Most of the larvfe of the Noctuidse have 1(3 feet in 

 all, but in some cases the first, and in some the first and second, pair 

 of sucker-feet are absent, and the caterpillar therefore "loops" in 

 walking, though not as much as in the case of the true loopers. 



