THE HEATHER BEETLE 375 



not much less than 750-1,000 acres. The ' frosted ' heather is 

 entirely useless for food, neither cattle, nor sheep, nor game 

 will touch it so far as I know ; therefore in this particular year 

 the wretched and insignificant little beetle destroyed the agri- 

 cultural and sporting value of (?) 1,000 acres on one moderate- 

 sized estate alone. How far the pest is spread over the whole 

 of Scotland I don't know, but the total acreage of spoilt heather 

 must be something very big indeed, and both the farmer and 

 the game preserver have a very troublesome enemy to cope 

 with in Lochmcea suturalis" 



(/) " It may interest you to know what we have been doing 

 about the heather beetle practically they have damaged the 

 whole moor, and we notice what I think was mentioned in your 

 pamphlet, that they steadily work eastwards. We have been 

 burning the affected heather as much as possible. At the time 

 we were burning there was a very hard frost, and as regards 

 the ground we turned up to examine we found the beetles not 

 deep down as we expected, but clustered just round the root of 

 the heather practically on the surface, and they didn't seem to 

 be at all affected by the frost." 



(g) "I am sorry to say the heather beetle is very bad with 

 us this year. It was seen on the wing first on April 5th in very 

 large quantities. Now [August] the grub can be seen in the 

 roots of the heather. The heather which was badly affected 

 last year seems to be quite dead, and has turned white. We 

 found in burning this spring that where the heather was burned 

 in narrow strips the portions of heather left between were 

 specially badly attacked, which looked as if the fire had not 

 killed the grub, but had driven them to the heathjer close by. 

 In cases where we burned one side of a knoll, we find the side 

 left has not suffered. This may be simply a coincidence, but 

 would appear to show that the grub can move short distances to 

 find fresh heather to attack, but cannot move more than a few 

 yards. With regard to stock of Grouse, we have never had 

 such a poor show although some of the moors in this district 

 have a fair average stock. I think we shall have to face 



