THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE MANGOL D-FL Y. 

 By Edward A. Fitch. 



Choetophila bet^. 



It is not long since one of the arguments advanced in favour 

 of mangold culture over that of turnips or swedes was the 

 immunity of the former root-crop from insect attack ; and it is 

 but few 3^ears since our agricultural text-books gave this crop as 

 altogether free from these pests. The experience of the last two 

 or three years has produced quite an opposite conviction. Mildew 

 or louse {Rliopalosiplmm cl'ianthi), the nigger or turnip-sawfly 

 {Athalia syinarum), have hardly put in an appearance, and the 

 " fly" {Phyllotreta undulata) has not been specially troublesome 

 amongst our turnips and swedes ; while, on the contrary, the 

 young mangolds have everywhere suffered severely from wireworm 

 (Agrlotes lineatus, Athous niger) and Tipula grubs below the 

 surface, and from caterpillars just above {Agrotis segetum, 

 A. cxclamatioms). Amongst the Coleoptera Silplia opaca, 

 S. Uevigata, S. atrata, Atomaria linearis (both here and on the 

 Continent, especially so in 1875 and 187G), Tamjmechus palliatm, 

 Cleonus siUcirostris, Gastrophysa polygoni, Cassida nehidosa, and 

 one of the Halticidcs, are all occasional destructives. The soft, 

 pale brown, tuberculate, six-legged, antenniferous larva, and the 

 pretty beetle, with its dark steel-blue elytra and red thorax, 

 of Gastrophysa polygoni, have been destructive to the mangold 

 leaves this year in several localities, more especially in the West 

 of England. Tanymeclius palliatus and Cleonus {Bothynodercs) 

 punctiventris have been particularly destructive in Kussia. 



This year we have one of those inexplicable spasmodic attacks, 

 of some species not generally noxious, amongst the mangold crop 

 throughout the kingdom. It has been more especially injurious 

 in the North of England. The mangold leaves have been 



