30 CABBAGE. 



after a while, as they grow and eat out the centre of the gall 

 with their strong jaws, they may be found either singly, in 

 separate galls, or (where the galls are in clusters) there may 

 be a group of little cells, communicating with each other 

 inside, and each with a maggot within. 



When full-fed the maggots leave the galls and make earth- 

 cases, in which they turn to the pupal or chrysalis state. 

 These cases they form by first securing a little bit of the 

 material lying close to them with the tip of the tail, and then, 

 with their jaws and moisture from the mouth, fastening on 

 to this beginning little morsels of pebble, sticks, earth, or 

 whatever may be within reach, and so forming a solid case 

 around themselves. If disturbed in this operation, the 

 maggot will drag its partly-formed case with it, or if the case, 

 when newly made, is broken, I have seen the maggot com- 

 plete it again. The quantity of moisture used in fastening 

 the particles of earth together is so great, that wet patches 

 can be observed inside the case as the work goes on. When 

 complete the case or earth-cocoon is smooth inside, and 

 lined with a kind of whitish or yellowish gummy material, 

 and it lies in a hollow in the ground from which the material 

 was taken. The time occupied from the maggot going into 

 the ground to the perfect beetle coming up from it was 

 between fifty-four days and two months in the middle of 

 summer, in the instances that I watched. 



The beetles may be found from spring onwards during 

 summer, and some maggots still in the galls in winter ; and 

 the maggots bear being frozen hard without the slightest 

 apparent injury, for on being thawed they will at once go 

 down into soft earth and begin to build up their earth-cases. 



Prevention and Eemedy. — With regard to Turnips and 

 Swedes, the simple fact that in common rotation the crop 

 comes at sufficient interval to prevent the ground harbouring 

 the weevils, or morsels of maggot-infested pieces from the 

 preceding root-crop, is usually a great security ; but where, 

 in Cabbage-growing districts, one Cabbage crop may be put 

 in after another, with only interval enough to lay a heavy 

 application of manure on the land, the weevils are likely 

 fairly to swarm. 



Where Cabbage is a constant crop of the district, a great 

 deal of good might be done by burning the infested old 

 Cabbage- stocks when drawn from the fields, instead of throw- 

 ing them into rot-heaps or of digging them into the ground, 

 as is often done. In this case the maggots are perfectly well 

 suited to take care of themselves ; they go from the galls 

 into the earth near them, and (unless the galls are very 



