BAT BEETLE. 



123 



well for a shelter as to keep the grubs from burying themselves, and 

 thus a daily search make clearance possible. 



Wild birds, such as rooks and sea gulls, should on no account be 

 driven off. The black-headed gull will follow the plough in the same 

 manner as the rooks, and feeds on Cockchafers both in grub and 

 beetle stages ; and the beaks of these or other of the larger birds, 

 which are adapted for piercing into the ground, will remove larvae 

 which lie within their reach without injury to surrounding rootlets, 

 which would be caused by horticultural disturbance. 



Ground Beetles — " Bat Beetle." Harpalus mficomis, Fab. ; 

 PterosticJms [ = OmaHeMs) vulgaris, Linn., and other species. 



Harpalus ruficornis (left hand), and Pterostichus vulgaris (right hand), 

 magnified, and lines showing natural length. Strawberry fruit gnawed by H. 

 ruficornis. 



All Strawberry growers on a large scale will probably be only too 

 well acquainted by report, even if they have not suffered under it 

 themselves, with the very great damage now too often caused yearly 

 by the large black or pitchy black beetles figured above (magnified) to 

 Strawberry fruit just at the ripening or ripened stages. 



The attack was first recorded as seriously destructive in 1894 ; 

 since then it has greatly extended in area, and become (in the districts 

 affected) a cause of great loss to Strawberry growers, and of annoy- 

 ance, though on a less important scale, to private owners, whose plots 

 were robbed by the beetles instead of affording fruit for household 

 purposes. 



The history of the attacks has been successively given in my 

 Annual Reports for 1894, 1895, and 1897, with descriptions of the 

 different species of " Ground Beetles" which caused the damage, and 

 so much of their life-history as we are acquainted with. Also at 

 pages 64-68, preceding, under the heading of " Mangolds — Ground 

 Beetles," an account will be found of the attack of various of the same 



