72 HOPS. [1899 



or three feet In'gb. Last year they got on the young shoots, and 

 stopped their growth altogether. In a yard where I generally have 

 ten or thirteen tons, I only had a little over three, through their 

 puncturing them so. 



" I put flower of lime, soot, and sulphur in a fine powdery condition 

 on them, all to no purpose. . . . This year I have washed them 

 with a strong solution of soft-soap and quassia and half a pint of 

 paraffin, all to no purpose, as they were as thick as ever next day, 

 seventy or eighty on one root. The best thing to keep them off that 

 I can find out up to the present time is to keep powdering them with 

 basic slag, put on through coarse bags. 



" I may say it was only one other yard besides mine that was 

 affected last year ; this time five or six all round here. ... I think 

 the mild winters that we have had lately have something to do with 

 them being hatched out earlier than usual. They do not seem to hurt 

 the Hops when they have a fairly good start." — (Gr. B.) 



Amongst points of interest in Mr. Bonnor's notes, one that it seems 

 to me might very likely be utilized practically is the observation that 

 the beetles appeared again in such great numbers (as many as seventy 

 or eighty on one root) the day after they had been cleared by such a 

 very stringent application as a wash of soft-soap, paraffin, and quassia. 

 As Mr. Bonnor's washing must have been applied some time before 

 the date of his letter to myself (May 15th), this renewal of attack must 

 in all probability have arisen from beetles that had wintered at the 

 roots of the Hops, and from beetles developed from maggots which 

 had fallen from their regular feeding places in the cones of the Hops in 

 the previous season, and had then gone through their changes to 

 beetle state in the earth or in rubbish on the surface, and appeared 

 (old and young together) in a similar manner to the Turnip Flea 

 Beetles early in the season. 



Mr. Bonnor mentions the attack as having been gradually in- 

 creasing in the Hop-grounds mentioned during the last few years, and 

 the localization of the headquarters of the spring origin of the attack 

 may help us very much towards getting rid of it. 



The following information is given by the Rev. Canon Fowler '■' 

 with regard to egg-laying in the Hop-cones and hybernation of the 

 beetles: — "The beetles get into the cones of the Hops and deposit 

 their eggs, and the larvae when hatched burrow through the bracts of 

 the cones, and make them lose colour and become disintegrated ; the 

 chief damage, however, is done in early spring, when the Hop-bines 

 are just sprouting, by those beetles that have hybernated in the old 



* 'The Coleoptera of the British Islands,' by the Kev. Canon Fowler, vol. iv. 

 pp. 388, 389 (which see also for full description of beetle). 



