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BEET CARRION BEETEE: 
Beet Carrion Beetle. Silpha opaca, Linn. 
SILpHAa opaca.—1—4, larva, nat. size and magnified; 5, 6, beetles, magnified ; 
natural length about five lines. 
The Silpha opaca, popularly known, on account of the double 
nature of the material on which it feeds, by the double name of Beet 
Carrion Beetle, has been recorded in the past season as not only in 
the locality under observation causing serious damage to Mangolds, 
which for some time back it has been known to infest, but, on the 
failure of other food under its devastation, carrying on its attack to 
Potatoes. 
Why this pest should continue persistently in this one locality for 
years, when in others it has appeared and then disappeared (or at least 
not been reported), is unexplained; but it is a curious circumstance 
that whilst in 1888 it severely injured Mangolds at various widely 
separated localities in England,—as near Shrewsbury ; near Newport, 
Mon.; and near Honiton, Devon,—no more was reported as to its 
presence from any of these places; whereas in 1891 it appeared and 
did much damage to Mangolds at Batworthy, a small farm on 
Dartmoor, a few miles from Chagford in Devonshire, and there it 
reappeared slightly in 1892, 1898, and 1894; and in 1895 it nearly 
destroyed the crop. In the past season attack has again appeared 
with various amounts of severity (as will be seen from the following 
communication) on various farms in the immediate neighbourhood of 
Batworthy, where it was first noticed. 
On June 11th last Mr. F. N. Budd, who had carefully recorded 
this yearly appearance of the pest, writing from North Tawton, Devon, 
favoured me with the following observations :— 
““T have again to report an attack of the Carrion Beetle grub on 
Mangolds growing in a field about half a mile from Batworthy, where 
the previous attacks, one of which is recorded in your Report of 1892, 
