JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
lxxix 
pushed under the leaves of the plant, as on the least disturbance 
they coil up and roll off. 
“ If ducks and poultry could be induced to eat these cater- 
pillars, it would be a cheap, convenient, and expeditious mode of 
removing them. In America, turkeys are turned into the tobacco 
plantations to pick oft" the larvrn of a Sphinx, which would other- 
wise devastate them ; and in the West Indies the large cockroaches 
with spiny legs are a bonne Louche for the fowls, as in provision 
stores numbers of them are often found in empty flour barrels, 
when it is the practice to call the fowls and shake the cockroaches 
out of the barrel or box upon the ground, when they are greedily 
eaten by the poultry. If ducks and fowls were made to fast a 
few hours to quicken their appetite, they would very likely eat a 
quantity of these larvae, given either alone or mixed with barley, 
and might thus by a little management be brought to first feed 
upon them and then to seek them in the fields.” 
In the present communication Mr. Sells states : “ In the early 
part of last summer I took every opportunity of urging strongly 
upon the farmers, in the neighbourhood of Kingston and else- 
where, their making a fair trial of this best (beyond all question) 
of the remedies that have been devised for the extirpation of their 
enemy. I have now received the particulars of several instances 
wherein the use of poultry has been perfectly successful and they 
are as follows. 
“ Mr. W. M., a very intelligent farmer, at Elston, Bedfordshire, 
wrote last July: ‘ In the summer of 1835 I had twenty-four 
acres of English turnips quite destroyed. In 183G I had near 
seventy acres of Swedes, all of which were more or less infested ; 
on the English this year not one was seen. Their work of de- 
struction seemed to be facilitated by hoeing, for after that opera- 
tion they increased a thousandfold. I then thought of the ducks 
and procured 160 young ones (old ones will not work), and kept 
them on the worst parts. They soon put a stop to the cater- 
pillars ; it was quite amusing to see how fast they would destroy 
them. The ducks were brought home and put into a barn, and 
fed with a little barley at night, or I should have lost all my 
friends, as their new food did not agree with them. My loss of 
turnips in 1835 only could not be less than £100.’ 
“ Mr. P., at the Robin Hood farm, had his turnip fields last 
year invaded by the black army (as they have been called in 
Devonshire). He procured eighty ducks at Leadenhall Market, 
and turned them out. The first day they did not take kindly to 
their business, but on the following they went to work in good 
