46 



CORN AND GRASS. 



Daddy Longlegs or Crane Fly. Tipula olemcea, Linn. 



TiPULA OLERACEA. 



1, grub ; 2, chrysalis-case standing up in the ground ; 3, fly ; 4, eggs. 



Daddy Longlegs grubs are one of our commonest and most injuri- 

 ous crop attacks. They recur more or less every year, and the history 

 of the infestation has been so thoroughly brought forward that it 

 seems almost a waste of space to enter on it again in detail. 



Still, as with the Corn Aphis, mentioned in preceding paper, and 

 the Garden Chafer, see pp. 6 — 9, there has not been an amount of 

 attack which seemed to call for special notice since record of presence 

 in the year 1885. Therefore I give a few of the observations or main 

 points sent me as shortly as possible, as, though the Daddy Longlegs, 

 or Crane Fly, can hardly fail to be familiar to all country residents, it 

 appears that the grub from which it develops is by no means so well 

 known as it ought to be. The points chosen refer mainly to the attack 

 being sometimes very injurious, even immediately after very severe 

 weather, as early in the year as February ; also to the great amount 

 in which the grubs were found at Mangolds after pasture land, even 

 though this had been dressed with salt, and well cultivated so as to 

 stir the soil to a depth of fourteen inches ; and also at Oats after 

 Clover and ley ; and to grubs being found in numbers of six to a square 

 yard, to five or six in a foot. Also notes of the grubs lying two, four, 

 or six inches beneath the surface ; and one observation of their lying 

 just below the surface by day, and coming on the surface by night : 

 and likewise of the attacked plants being cut through a little beneath 

 the surface, in some instances the portion of the field attacked being 

 laid completely bare. 



The first observation was sent me from Stafford, on Feb. 19th (this 



