HALTICA PARVULA. 259 



of grass injured by its depredations, are not aware 

 that it is the grub of a very common beetle, one of 

 those popularly termed skipjacks {Hemerhipus segetis) . 

 It destroyed in the garden, during the same season, 

 above a thousand plants, but fortunately few or none 

 of a rare or valuable kind. One plant was raised for 

 examination, and above fifty wire-worms were found 

 preying on its roots. For this information I was 

 indebted to the late Mr. Thomas Drummond, then 

 curator of the garden. 



As linen is the staple manufacture of this part of 

 the country, and gives employment in various de- 

 partments to many thousand persons, the flax crop is 

 naturally regarded as one of very high importance ; 

 yet here a diminutive insect had the hardihood 

 to interfere, and, despite of all the efforts of man, 

 nearly destroyed, in many parts of the county Down, 

 in the summer of 1827, the entire crop of flax. The 

 minute assailant was a little jumping beetle (Holtica 

 parvula) *, resembUng that called the turnip-flj', but 

 much smaller. Specimens of it are preserv'ed in the 

 cabinet of Mr. G. C. Hyndman. 



In 1832 I visited the county Wicklow, and heard 

 from several persons there, an account of the defolia- 

 tion produced by a caterpillar. It was stated that 



* See ante, p. 22. 



