28 Mr. Henry Le Keux on the Turnip Fly. 
banks. They occasionally leave their hiding-places in the winter 
when an unusually warm day occurs ; at such times I have met 
with them in the months of January, February, and March, on a 
barkless and decaying stump of a tree, on the side of a dry bank, 
and on clods of earth, when they wei'e as active as in the summer, 
but only when the sun has been shining, and in a situation sheltered 
from the wind. But those which I have discovered in their haunts 
in cold weather w r ere torpid or inactive ; indeed I thought them 
dead until the warmth of my hand, in which I was conveying a 
number of them home, revived them, and in a few minutes they 
had all skipped away. From the fact of their being found in such 
various situations, I think there can be little doubt that they breed 
in many other plants beside turnips, probably in any of the cruci- 
form kind. The weed growing in the hedges, and generally so 
annoyingly abundant in turnip fields, and called Chorleigh by the 
Devonshire farmers, affords the Haltiea a welcome feast towards 
the end of April and during May, when I have found plants of this 
kind covered with them, and every leaf pierced full of holes, but 
these are presently deserted when any turnips appear in the neigh- 
bourhood. 
I am sorry to be obliged to add, that in the more important 
object of my search for some antidote to their destructive attacks 
upon the young turnip, I have not hitherto been successful, although 
I have devoted much time to it, not neglecting any opportunity of 
trying such experiments as I thought likely to effect so desirable a 
purpose. The insects being so universally spread over the country, 
places the possibility of exterminating them out of the question. 
From the manner in which it breeds, it is obvious that no injury, 
or none of any consequence, is done to the turnip by the larva, the 
mischief being effected by the insect in its perfect state, which, 
having secreted itself through the winter, comes from its hiding- 
place with the return of warm w r eather, with a keen appetite, and 
is attracted from all quarters by the scent of turnips with as much 
certainty as the crow is attracted by the smell of carrion to feast 
upon its favourite food. 
The inefficacy of lime as an antidote was strikingly apparent 
during my first observations, where the land was dressed with it 
(forty bushels to an acre) immediately before the seeds were sown, 
and when the plants came up and the fly was observed attacking 
them, lime dust was thrown over them, so that many of the plants 
were quite white with a coat of it. Notwithstanding this I found as 
many flies upon the whitened plants as upon any of those which were 
free from lime, and they tvere eventually devoured. In one part 
