136 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



copied by Mr. Curtis in his ' Farm Insects,' p. 395. Accord- 

 ing to these authorities the beetle in question is the Atoinaria 

 pygmaea of Heer, the Atomaria linearis of our countryman 

 the late J. F. Stephens : the specimens, of which I have 

 received a copious supply in a living and excessively restless 

 state, seemed closely to resemble certain examples of an 

 Atomaria, which very many years ago I had named 

 "A. gutta." I am, however, perfectly willing to accept 

 Heer's name of " Pygmaea," or any other that will be tolerably 

 permanent. M. Bazin, as translated by Mr. Curtis, tells us 

 that this little beetle is " generated in great numbers, 

 destroying the buds as they appear, and that on removing 

 the clods of earth innumerable quantities may be seen." It 

 seems at first to attack the root onl}', but ai'terwards, when 

 the weather is fine, it comes out of the ground, ascends the 

 stem, and devours the leaves. "These little creatures often 

 appear in families on a small plant, of which in a few hours 

 nothing will remain but a leafless stalk, which soon withers 

 and dies." M. Bazin first observed this beetle in 1839 at 

 Mesnil-St.-Firmin ; and some years later M. Macquard stated 

 that " it devoured the fields of red beet in the environs of 

 Lille to such an extent that the cultivators were obliged to 

 re-plough and re-sow the fields." M. Bazin considers the 

 following remedies to be infallible: — 1st, fallowing; 2nd, 

 heavy rolling; 3rd, good tillage; 4th, powerful manure; 

 5th, thick sowing. I must in this instance totally disclaim 

 all experimental knowledge of these remedies. I give them 

 solely on the authority of the learned Freiachman, to whom 

 we are indebted for the earliest life-history I have seen of this 

 insect. Mr. W. H. Wayne, an intelligent correspondent of the 

 'Field,' informs us that the injury "still continues in spite of 

 salt, lime, and soot," leading us to believe that he has given 

 these supposed remedies a fair trial. Mangold wurzel is also 

 obnoxious to the attack of several species of the saltaut 

 genus Altica, the larva; of which mine the leaves in the same 

 manner as those of the turnip are mined by Altica Nemorum ; 

 and it has been said that the larvae of a necrophagous beetle 

 (Silpha opaca) feed greedily on the leaves, beginning at 

 their edges, just in the same manner as a woodlouse or the 

 caterpillar of a moth. The curious fact of these insects 

 eating green leaves, a diet so opposed to the taste we should 



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