MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 293 



" Hemsby. Destruction of the strawberry crop. 

 This parish has been met, in the midst of the 

 Jubilee rejoicings, with a plague of beetles, which 

 has totally destroyed the strawberry crop. In some 

 instances, where upwards of a ton would have been 

 taken, not 1 Ib. will be gathered. This means a 

 loss of many pounds. This pest is nowhere to be 

 seen during the daytime, but comes in thousands 

 during the night. Can any reader find a remedy 

 or a destruction for these pests?" 



On the strength of this paragraph I went to 

 the village armed with a matchbox in order to 

 make a few prisoners for future investigation. I 

 went to one grower's place and looked at a half-acre 

 patch of very dry, upland, sandy strawberry-ground, 

 on which were twenty-seven rows of plants. The 

 year previous it had yielded between 60 and 70 

 stones of fruit. This year scarcely a stone had 

 been worth the gathering. Pushing my fingers 

 through the soil, under and around the plants, I 

 very soon had a handful of beetles black-thoraxed, 

 dull-brown backed and ruddier-brown legged little 

 fellows, scarcely over half an inch in length, known 

 to science as Harpalus riificornis. 



