INSECTS, ETC 167 



tawny, legless grubs, with an abrupt or truncated tail. The 

 grubs work their way tln-ough the soil, or come to the sur- 

 face at night, and feed on the stems of plants and grasses. 

 Remedy. — There is only one way of dealing with this 

 pernicious pest, and that is digging in, in autumn or prior 

 to planting, one of the soil fumigants described elsewhere. 



Lettuce Fly (Anthomyia lactuc.^).— The larva? of this 

 fly feed on the seed of lettuce, and occasionally ruin the 

 crop. The larvae are yellowish -white in colour, a quarter- 

 inch long, and footless. The fly is about the same size 

 as the housefly, brownish-black, with brown wings, and 

 lays its eggs in the blossoms in early summer. Those, 

 therefore, who grow lettuce for seed should take special 

 care not to allow the maggots to exist in large numbers. 



Remedy. — See that the seed before sowdng is free from 

 the pupa3 of this insect. Plants infested with the maggots 

 should be burnt at once. 



Lettuce Root Aphis (Pemphigus lactucarius). — 

 Large lettuce plants sometimes droop and look sickly. On 

 pulling up the plant the roots will be found infested with 

 insects, having their bodies clothed with fine cottony 

 down. These are the Lettuce Root Aphides. They cluster 

 round the base of the stem and on the roots, and suck 

 out the sap from the cells. 



Remedies. — Burn every infested plant, and dress the 

 land afterwards with Apterite, Cliffs Powder Insecticide, 

 Kilogrub, or Vaporite. 



Millepedes (Julus). — These small, active httle ani- 

 mals, commonly known as Thousand Feet, are sometimes 

 a source of trouble to the gardener. Although their 

 natural food is supposed to be decaying matter, they are 

 known to attack the seeds of runner and kidney beans and 

 peas soon after sowing, and either destroy the germinat- 

 ing power of the latter or weaken the embryo plant. There 

 are at least three kinds that are hurtful to seeds— namely, 



