168 
used with some success against the white-grubs of France. The 
main dependence in the Old World, however, has been a thoroughly 
organized movement for the collection of the beetles from the tl-ee's 
at night, the usual method of securing general action being to pay a 
sufficient price for the beetles in quantity to make their collection a 
profitable enterprise during the time of their presence on the trees. 
This method can be used to advantage only by owners of very large 
estates or by communities or combinations of farmers acting to- 
gether for their common benefit. The same may be said of the 
destruction of the beetles by poisoning their food. If the ordinary 
land owner were to proceed by himself, it is probable that his fieJds' 
would become iitfested by invasion from without even though he 
might destroy every May-beetle on his own premises. The least 
promising of these methods is the simplest and the cheapest of them 
all— that of collecting the beetles by lantern traps. These take ef- 
fect much the most strongly upon the males, and collect, under the 
most favorable circumstances, only a comparatively small percentage 
of the beetles in their neighborhood. Furthermore, it is available 
only on dark and relatively quiet nights. 
What may be done by way of general concerted action is well 
illustrated by a campaign of destruction carried on against the white- 
grubs of the Swedish province of Halland during the ten years from 
1885 to 1895, within which time 29,736 bushels of May-beetles and 
their larv?e were collected at an expense of $15,554, or about 52 
cents a bushel, the state usually paying half of this sum, the Eco- 
nomic Society of the province a fourth, and the communes or coun- 
ties the remaining fourth. The effect was especially shown in the 
gradual reduction in the number of the beetles collected— from 14,- 
801 bushels in 1887 to 5,611 in 1895, although the number of com'- 
munes participating in the w^ork had increased in the meantime, and 
the area covered by the collections was correspondingly greater.* 
So far as is now to he foreseen, organized work of some such de- 
scription will finally be necessary to the control of the white-grub 
pest in Illinoi s, and throughout America generally. 
*Augusi Lyttkiiis. in Eiitomolog-isk Tidskrift for 1807. Stockholm, LS'i.s. 
