GROUND BEETLES. 81 
In 1885 I had specimens of the Pterostichus (= Steropus) madidus 
sent me, by Mr. T. J. Mann, from near Bishop’s Stortford (with 
samples of young Mangold-roots accompanying), as examples of the 
great damage which was then being done to his crop by the nocturnal, 
or very early morning attacks, of this beetle to the portion of the 
Mangolds just about ground-level. 
PrrrosticHus (— STEROPUS) MADIDUS, Magnified, and line showing nat. length; 
young Mangold-roots gnawed by the beetles. 
The above figure is taken from some of the injured Mangolds sent 
me as “‘ good types of how they were eaten off,” and of the kind of 
beetles (of which samples were also sent) caught early in the morning 
in the act of eating the Mangolds; and it is added here as the Steropus 
madidus is one of the kinds of Ground Beetles which, both in the past 
season of 1895 and in the preceding summer, attacked the Straw- 
berries in Lincolnshire. 
In 1892 another kind of Ground Beetle, the Harpalus ruficornis, 
was identified by Dr. J. Ritzema Bos, Director of the Phyto-pathological 
Laboratory, Amsterdam, as being found in great numbers in the 
Strawberry-beds at Goes, in Zeeland, Holland, and being very hurtful 
to the ripe fruit.* 
In 1894 observations were forwarded to me by Mr. M. J. R. Dun- 
stan, Director of Technical Instruction for the County Council of 
Nottinghamshire, of attack on Strawberry fruit by Ground Beetles at 
Woodborough, in the above-named county. The actual berries were 
attacked by the beetles, who came on them at night in great numbers. 
The injury was to three roods, and the crop was ruined. The attack was 
watched, so that there might be no uncertainty as to the cause of the 
mischief, and samples of the beetles taken proved, on trustworthy ento- 
mological identification, to be of three distinct species of Ground Beetles, 
namely, Pterostichus (= Steropus)madidus, Harpalus rujficornis,and Cala- 
* See ‘Kurze Mitteilungen iiber Pflanzenkrankheiten und Beschidigungen 
in den Niederlanden in den Jahren 1892 und 1893,’ von Dr. J. Ritzema Bos. 
Separate impression from ‘ Zeitschrift fiir Pflanzenkrankheiten,’ iv. Band, 3 und 4 
Heft; also ‘ Biologisches Centralblatt,’ xiii, Band, Nr. 7 und 8, pp. 255, 256. 
G 
