u6 PROTECTION OF WOODS AGAINST 



found to have had their roots bitten off. If this happens, the 

 best procedure is to systematically go through the seed-beds, 

 running the plants up between the fingers. Loose plants will 

 be pulled up without damaging the sound ones. When 

 a loose plant is found, dig down at and round that spot with 

 a narrow trowel. Very often the grub will be found at work 

 and can be destroyed. All beetles found should also be 

 destroyed. To aid collection of grubs a trench should be 

 dug round the nursery and filled with humus ; this should 

 be turned over every now and then, and probably many grubs 

 will be found. Birds, especially rooks and starlings, eat the 



Fig. 2. Hylobius abietis, Fabr. 

 a Imago. b Larva. c Pupa. 



grubs and beetles, while moles also eat quantities of the grubs, 

 but are, unfortunately, undesirable in a nursery. 



Pine weevil (Hylobius abietis). 



This beetle is from three-eighths to half an inch long, dark 

 brown to black, with two or three golden stripes across the 

 back. Its head has a long snout. The beetle is found from 

 May to September, and it lays its eggs on stumps and roots 

 of conifers, which have been felled one or two years. The 

 grubs eat galleries in the bast and sapwood of the stumps, 

 and finally turn into pupae in them. As the grubs pass their 

 life in stumps they do not do any harm, but the perfect beetles, 

 which come out in the second year, attack young plants of 



