82 ON THE MOST CERTAIN METHOD OF 



on and under the branches. Xot one beetle of either kind was found 

 upon the young trees for fifty that were upon the branches, which 

 had to be lifted with great care, otherwise the beetles would drop 

 from them among the grass and be lost for the time; the beetles 

 were often found lying on their backs when the branch was lifted, 

 so that it was necessary to look where the branch had marked the 

 grass, for even with the utmost care in lifting it some of them quit 

 their hold. I have seen a boy take 7 beetles, large and small, off one 

 branch, or rather stick, about 3| feet long; the branches are better 

 to be a little heavy, as they lie more firmly on the grass, and more 

 readily arrest the progress of the beetles in search of food. The 

 beetles generally begin their devastations about the middle of April, 

 and carry on the work of destruction till the middle of June ; then few 

 are to be found till the beginning of August, when they again be- 

 come more numerous till about the middle of September, after which 

 there is scarcely one to be found, even in places where they have not 

 been destroyed. I have heard it said that the best time to gather 

 beetles was at 4 a m., as that was their principal feeding time. In 

 my experience this is not the case. I have looked for them from 

 between 3 and 4 a.m. to between 9 and 10 p.m., and invariably found 

 them most numerous upon the trees and branches from 8 to 11 a.m., 

 and from 4 to 7 p.m., and on wet days they are only found on the 

 under side of the branches. They keep well in the shade both on the 

 trees and the branches when the heat of the sun is strong ; they 

 neither like much heat nor much cold. 



"We gathered the beetles in the two plantations for 5 weeks in the 

 spring, and 3 weeks in the autumn of 1865, and the number de- 

 stroyed was 15,100. We gathered again in the following spring, when 

 we captured 2300, and in the autumn we only got 100; total, 17,500 

 beetles. I do not think we collected more than one small beetle for 

 twenty of the large ones. The beetles were counted by the man 

 in charge, at dinner-time and at night. Each boy's gathering was 

 marked in a book ; the boys knew this was done, and it made them 

 strive with each other who would gather most. The beetles were 

 counted upon a large flat stone, and after the number was ascertained 

 they were destroyed with a small flat stone. These plantations were 

 beat up with weeping birch, plane, Scotch fir, and larch, in the spring 

 of 1867, and are growing well without any appearance of beetles. 



Plantation Xo. 3, after cattle being in it for three years, had to 

 be cleared of the beetles in the same way as Xos. 1 and 2. They were 

 only gathered one season, however, before planting. Pits were made 



