Annual Report for 1912 of the Zoologist. 205 



allowed to blossom. Then fifty raspberry beetles were admitted 

 to each, and the plant and flower pot entirely enclosed in a 

 muslin bag. The idea was to remove one plant at a time to the 

 laboratory, at intervals of about a month, and, by thorough 

 examination of ever^^ thing within the muslin bag, to deter- 

 mine precisely where and in what condition the insect was at 

 the time of examination. The investigation still continues, but 

 even as far as it has gone, it has entirely disproved some of the 

 statements to be found in all the text-books. For instance, it 

 is asserted that the larvae, on leaving the fruit, shelter, among 

 other places, under loose bark, spin a cocoon, within which 

 they turn to pupte, and remain in this condition until the 

 following spring. As a matter of fact they shelter in the soil 

 and nowhere else ; they spin no cocoon, but the pupa is naked 

 and white ; and they very soon begin to turn to beetles. 



In the soil of a pot examined on August 21 numerous 

 larvae and a few pupse were found at an average depth of about 

 1^ inches. In the next pot, examined on September 25, no 

 larvte were found, but numerous pup^e and two beetles, 

 evidently recently emerged. A month later the beetles — pale 

 coloured but active — were numerous. It remains to be dis- 

 covered whether they simply stay beneath the soil as beetles 

 till next May, or whether they have any special object in 

 attaining the active mature form so many months before the 

 raspberries are ready to be attacked. 



One point of practical importance is at least clear : the 

 proper time to treat the soil with the view of eradicating the 

 pest is immediately after the fruit has been gathered, and not 

 in the winter, as is generally suggested. Various insecticides 

 for this purpose were experimented with this summer, and 

 will, I hope, be reported on next year. 



Miscellaneous Notes. 



From time to time various preparations are launched upon 

 the market wa: ranted to do remarkable things in the way of 

 preventing or arresting the attacks of injurious insects, and 

 recently the Ferments Ortel have been widely advertised. 

 There are four brands of the ferments, and it is claimed for 

 them that they attract to their destruction special types of 

 injurious insects — fi'uit pests, vine pests, vegetable and flower 

 pests and biting flies respectively. One is instructed to place 

 some of the ferment (in the form of a paste) in a kind of wasp- 

 bottle, add a little water, and hang it up in the appropriate 

 milieu, and straightway the objectionable insects will flock to 

 it, and the useful insects leave it severely alone. The instruc- 

 tions include details of the number of bottles to be used to the 

 acre ! Such a claim seemed hardly deserving of serious 



