90 INSECT PESTS 



The Raspberry or Clay-coloured Weevil {Otiorhynchus 

 picipes) is the best known of the weevils and laeetles which 

 attack raspberries, and a description of it may be given 

 here, as the method of checking will serve for the others. 

 It is about I inch long, and bro-wTi or clay-coloured, so 

 that it is difficult to see it on the ground. Nature is of 

 course the only adept at camouflage, and striking evidences 

 of the fact meet us at every turn. This little weevil has 

 no wings and is in the habit of feeding at night. The 

 larva is whitey-brown in colour with a brown head. The 

 eggs are laid in the ground, and the grubs feed on the 

 roots from midsummer to spring, when they change into 

 a white pupa with black spots over the eyes. They attack 

 many other plants, such as vines, strawberry, mangold, 

 peas, beans and turnips, to which may be added various 

 flowers both in greenhouses and in the open air. 



Drastic soil dressings are necessary where the pest has 

 got a firm hold, using gas-hme, and where the crop can 

 be moved to another situation the following season this 

 should be done. The tits, blackbirds and thrushes should 

 be borne in mind, as they are very fond of these weevils, 

 and certain sand-wasps (Odyneri) kill or paralyse them 

 and carry them o£E to their nests with which to feed their 

 young. (See Plates 20 and 24.) 



We now come to currants, where a number of creatures 

 await our attention. There is first of all the Currant 

 Scale (Lecanium persicce), an insect found commonly on 

 currant, gooseberry, rose, plum and other trees, both 

 wild and cultivated. As in the case of the mussel scale, 

 to which this is allied, the females of this strange group 

 of the Hemiptera have the unusual quahty of being 

 sexually complete and therefore self-productive. The 

 male Current Scale, if it exists, is evidently a very insig- 

 nificant factor in their economy. The Scale is about -^'o 

 inch long, and has legs in the larval state but becomes 

 stationary in maturity. They fix themselves under 

 partly detached portions of bark in order to pass the 



