28 CORN AND GRASS. 



a little under three-quarters of an inch; and Miss Dobell noted, — "Now 

 the rain has come they seem very active, and the birds too ; our field 

 is at times black with starlings and missel thrushes." 



The mischief caused by the feeding of the Kose Chafer grubs 

 beneath the turf continued certainly up to the middle, and on as late 

 as the 17th of October, and presumably, weather permitting, much 

 later. 



On the 14tli of October, Mr. T. P. Newman, who was good enough 

 at my request to make special search as to whether the grubs were 

 still to be found, wrote me from Hazelhurst, Haslemere, Surrey, as 

 follows : — "I am sending you the result of two diggings, one a space 

 of about 2i X 12 inches, the other about H x 12 inches. The top 

 three inches contains no grubs at all. Between three inches and six 

 there are few. Below six inches and down to nine inches they are 

 plentiful. Below nine inches down to twelve there are few. Below 

 twelve inches there is little but stone and shale, and there are no 

 grubs." — (T. P. N.) These notes of depth of chief amount of grub 

 presence seem to me of very practical interest regarding remedial 

 measures noticed further on. 



On the 17th of October, Mr. Mark Sandford, writing from the 

 Estate Office, Maresfield Park, Uckfield, added the following note of 

 destruction then going on to his previous observations : — " The rooks 

 are very busy in the park each early morning, almost ploughing up the 

 turf for the grubs of the Rose Beetles ; no doubt they seem to be 

 damaging the turf very much, but I presume it is the best way to get 

 rid of the beetles, is it not ? They seem to know exactly where to find 

 them, as they do not go all over the park, only at certain places, and 

 at those places we can find the grubs, and not elsewhere." 



The beetles are easily recognizable by being of the shape and size 

 figured at p. 22, the colour of the head and fore body bright deep green, 

 the wing-cases bright brown. The wings are ample, the under side of 

 the body and legs black. The life-time of this Eose Chafer {Plujllo- 

 2)ertha horticola) is now known to extend in all its conditions only over 

 twelve months. The beetles, as we know, appear in May, or early in 

 the summer, and feed very especially on Roses, but also on many kinds 

 of leafage. The female beetles then deposit their eggs (up, it is stated, 

 to the number of a hundred) in the earth, and then they die ; the 

 grubs from these ravage, as we know, at plant roots, especially Grass 

 roots, and by November are full-sized. During winter they lie in the 

 ground, and presently change to the pupal state, from which the 

 beetles may be expected to develop in May. 



The life-history of the Cockchafer, the Melolontha vulgaris, is very 

 similar to the above in the main points, — with the exception that the 

 Cockchafer (as shown at page 27) is upwards of four times as large 



