MUSTARD BEETLE. 93 



(in some slight, amount of notice) possibly to have done good when the 

 grubs had lately gone down to turn to chrysalids. It was thought that 

 turning these out, or throwing them open to the birds in this condition 

 had helped to prevent as much of the next brood of beetles coming out, 

 as would othei'wise have been the case. Besides this, which is hardly 

 worth notice, the sole remedy which was reported in 1886 (and even 

 this has been exceedingly little noted in this country) is the expensive 

 and troublesome method of collecting the beetles into bottles or mugs. 



In 188G, Mr. W. M. Meesom, writing from Battlesbridge, Essex, 

 reported : — " I have been on the look-out for the beetle for three 

 weeks past, and on Wednesday last, two or three made their appear- 

 ance. I have now two men doing nothing else but collecting the 

 beetles, which we put into bottles, and scald every night. They collect 

 on an average between 300 and 500 each per day, and, I believe, we 

 shall be able to save the crop. My Mustard is now from 3 to 4 feet 

 high."— (W. M. M.) 



The great difficulty in carrying out this plan, or rather the broad- 

 scale adaptations of it which suggest themselves, is the difficulty of 

 workers moving through the Mustard without really doing more harm 

 (by their crushing and breaking down the crop) than the infestation 

 itself. If the crop was so sown that there was passage amongst it, the 

 beetles might be shaken down in the morning or evening, or when 

 weather influences made them torpid, into bags, or pails, or baskets, 

 held below. 



In the case of the small Raspberry Beetle, the By turns tomentosus, 

 so destructive and difficult to get rid of in Raspberry plantations, Mr. 

 C. D. Wise, the Superintendent of the Fruit Grounds at Toddington, 

 Gloucestershire, wrote me in June of last year (1891) : — " We have 

 been shaking the bushes over bags soaked in paraffin with excellent 

 effect." 



If in Mustard growing we could get at the plants, so that the 

 beetles could be knocked down on anything held beneath, where they 

 would be killed, and thus cleared in a sort of wholesale method of 

 operation, this would get rid of so much, both of present and coming 

 mischief, that the outlay would probably be well returned. 



The only other method of destruction that I know of for the pest in 

 beetle state, is by burning damp straw before the advancing hordes 

 when, as is sometimes the case, they are migrating in great numbers 

 from a ravaged field to fresh ground. By arranging a cart-load or two 

 of damped straw across the line of march and firing it, the advance may 

 sometimes be stopped, but not always, for they are known sometimes 

 to escape mischief to themselves by going down into the earth. 



At p. 95, a few lines will be found of a method of " trapping " the 



