264 GARDEN FOES. 



a dark bro\\n four-winged insect, with a reddish- 

 tij^ped body, pale yellow eyes and limbs, and 

 measuring l-20in. in length. It is wonderfully agile 

 in its habits, jumping away directly the leaf it 

 is on is touched. The larvae — small whitish or 

 yellowish maggots — are also fairly active, but they can- 

 not jump. Both feed on the surfaces of the leaves and 

 shoots, sucking out the juices, and causing them to assume 

 a yellowish tinge and die. Not only do they injure the 

 leaves, but also the young shoots and flowers. They are 

 especially destructive to the young and tender foliage of 

 orchids. As a rule, they never get very numerous in 

 greenhouses that have a fairly moist atmosphere. 



Eemedies. — Sponging the foliage, or syringing or spray- 

 ing with a solution of one of the advertised insecticides, 

 are the usual remedies. Fumigation with nicotine on 

 three successive evenings generally proves successful. 



Weevils. — Both the perfect insects and the larvi« do 

 considerable injury to plants in greenhouses as well as 

 outdoors. The particular species responsible for the in- 

 jury to greenhouse plants is the Clay-Coloured Weevil 

 (Otiorhynchus picipes). A fully -developed specimen of this 

 weevil measures about a quarter of an inch long. It is 

 wingless, and the body or chief colour is of a clayish hue, 

 freely spotted with dark warts. The weevils lay their eggs 

 just beneath the surface of the soil, and these speedily 

 hatch into white, legless maggots, having brown heads, 

 which feed during the autumn and winter, and emerge 

 into the perfect weevil the following spring. Owing to the 

 colour of the weevils being similar to the earth, it is almost 

 impossible to detect them in a casual way ; and it is next 

 to useless searching the foliage for them by day, as they 

 are then safely hidden beneath the surface of the soil. 

 They are nocturnal insects, hence only feed by night. The 

 full-grown weevils feed on the young fronds of maidenhair 

 ferns and on flowers, and the maggots on the roots of 

 plants. 



