A NEW STRAWBERRY PEST. 473 



In response to my request for specimens of the insects doing 

 the injury, he sent me some specimens of this beetle. It was hard 

 to believe that this well known friend had developed such a trick, 

 but investigation of the literature on Harpalus, revealed the fact 

 that he had shown this bad trait elsewhere. In Ohio in 1900 mem- 

 bers of this genus (H. calignosus) were reported as injuring straw- 

 berries, and had probably attacked strawberries before that date. 

 In 1892, Harpalus ruiicornis caused trouble in the same way in 

 Holland, and Miss Ormerod mentions the same injury in England 

 in her Reports for 1894, '95 and '97-'99- 



Remedies. 



There are various ways of combatting this pest in the straw- 

 berry patch. They work entirely at night, and during the season 

 of their abundance it is barely possible that the lantern trap may be 

 effective, though I have not had any experience with the same. It 

 is worth trying. The lantern trap consists of a pan two-thirds full 

 of water upon which a generous layer of kerosene has been 

 poured. This pan is put upon a post in the strawberry patch about 

 two feet above the ground, say, and above the pan is suspended a 

 lantern ; or the lantern rests upon a brick placed in the pan. The 

 beetles, attracted by the light, fall into the kerosene and are killed. 

 Several such traps might materially reduce the number of beetles. 

 Bran mixed with water, sweetened with molasses and poisoned with 

 paris green, if distributed under boards and in other protected situ- 

 ations in the strawberry patch, is also said to be fairly effective. It 

 would, of course, be fatal to any fowl which had found its way into 

 the patch. Some berry raisers have put cheap meat, such as lights 

 from sheep or calves, in basins, the basins being sunk in the ground 

 up to their top. They are examined every morning and the beetles 

 which fall into the pans collected and killed. This insect became 

 at one time such a serious pest in Pennsylvania that children were 

 employed to go through the strawberry patches and pick the beetles 

 from under the mulching and elsewhere. Fifteen or twenty dollars 

 or even three times those sums spent in this way, if it will save two 

 or three or four hundred dollars on the strawberry crop, is money 

 well expended. Another suggestion is to place boards throughout 

 the strawberry field and look under them every morning, catching 

 and killing the beetles found there. If there is anything like rag- 

 weed growing about the strawberry patch it should be destroyed. 



The illustration accompanying this article represents two pinned 

 specimens of this ground beetle, somewhat enlarged, the hair line 

 indicating the real size. 



