GROUND BEETLES. y ba 5° 
the box some specimens of beetles with which our house is this year 
infested. Is it likely that the damage to the Strawberries is done by 
the beetles? . . . I may mention that I have heard of several 
other cases of the destruction of the Strawberry crop in the same way 
in this neighbourhood.”’ 
The beetles sent me by the Rey. T. E. Platten proved to be 
specimens of the Strawberry ‘‘Ground Beetle,” the Harpalus ruji- 
cornis, and on furnishing them with ripe Strawberries, they attacked 
the fruit as I had seen on previous occasions. One patch of five-eighths 
of an inch long by about half that breadth was eaten away on the 
outside of one fruit; and in another case one of the beetles fairly 
buried itself in a large hole which it gnawed right through in a fruit, 
the end of the tail of the beetle showing at one end, and the head 
coming out just beneath the calyx at the other. 
On July 9th Mr. Platten wrote further regarding the beetles :— 
‘‘My man and I yesterday searched a crack in the ground in the 
Strawberry bed, and in about a foot or eighteen inches found a dozen. 
There were two kinds, one the same as those I sent, Harpalus rufi- 
cornis, and the other a larger and blacker beetle, but there were only 
two or three of these.* The ground in many places is covered with a 
powdery dust,—the seeds eaten off the berries. As to the cause ;—no 
town manure has been used on the beds or anywhere in the parish, I 
feel sure. The bed is infested all over, as far as I can see; about 
one-third was newly planted last autumn, the rest was not dug, but 
there does not appear to be any difference in the number of beetles. 
It is not due, I think, to the scarcity of moles, I seldom knew them so 
numerous as last year. Last autumn, in two of the fields near, I 
noticed several times very large flocks of starlings, and I thought then 
that there must be a very plentiful supply of food of some sort for 
them. I do not know whether there could be any connection between 
the two things. . . . I find the beetles do eat one another; a 
dead carcase is greedily attacked at once.” 
In regard to possibility of poisoning the beetles by a mixture of 
red lead made up into a paste with flour, which had been mentioned 
as sometimes answering for destroying beetles, Mr. Platten wrote me 
on July 12th :— 
‘‘ Red lead has no effect upon the beetles. I mixed flour, dripping, 
and the lead into a paste, and gave it to some in a box; they at once 
devoured it greedily. That was on Saturday. This morning (Monday) 
they are as lively as ever.” 
* Conjecturally, these beetles might be Pterostichus vulgaris or P. (Steropus) 
madidus, both of which species are black, and somewhat larger than the H. ruji- 
cornis (see p.111); but as I had not specimens for examination, I cannot be 
certain.—E. A. O. 
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