42 CORN AND GRASS. 



Of pests more especially infesting grass-land, Daddy Longlegs 

 were very troublesome in some districts ; the (so-called) Rose Chafer, 

 which does mischief in beetle state to leafage, but is at times ex- 

 ceedingly destructive in maggot state at the roots of grass in park or 

 meadow land, reappeared injuriously in some of the localities in the 

 S.E. of England where its ravages had been serious in 1893. 



Amongst communications from various quarters on the subject of 

 Wireworm, some correspondence passed between Mr. B. H. Gosselin- 

 Lefebure, of Blanchelande, Guernsey, and myself as to the effect of 

 paraffin oil on the "worms." From Mr. Lefebure's observations it 

 will be seen that though all the Wireworms experimented on eventually 

 died, yet, to use his own words, they " were very hard to kill" ; and 

 it may certainly be conjectured that if Wireworm can stand soaking 

 in paraffin oil for four and forty hours with only some proportion of 

 these larvae being killed in the time named, and others surviving 

 for some days, paraffin mixtures cannot be wholly trusted to as 

 remedial agents in field use, though they may act well sometimes as 

 deterrents. 



Mr. Gosselin-Lefebure sent me the tabulated details of his experi- 

 ments, of which the following is a short statement of results. On the 

 6th of August he took about two and twenty, Wireworms, some of 

 which he put in pure paraffin oil, in which they sank to the bottom ; 

 others he placed in paraffin oil and water (20 parts to 1), in which the 

 " worms" floated on the water beneath the paraffin ; and five small 

 specimens he placed in a shallow layer of paraffin, so that the air 

 might have some access to them. Each of the collections of Wire- 

 worms were left, placed as above mentioned, for forty-four hours, and 

 were then taken out, passed through water, and then put in boxes with 

 fine sifted soil, but with no (apparent) food in it, and their condition 

 examined at intervals. 



The five small Wireworms were found in a few hours to be dead ; 

 but of the others a few were moving on the 8th, the day on which they 

 were taken out of the paraffin, and on the following day ; hardly any 

 showed motion on the next day ; only one of each of the two collections 

 moved on the 11th, and on the 12th all were dead. In an experiment 

 tried by Mr. Lefebure a short time previously, the Wireworms were 

 put in shallow paraffin, and some were alive after several days. 



These experiments appear to me to be worth recording as showing 



Station of the Department of Agriculture of the Hungarian Government at Buda- 

 pest, who is especially investigating the order of Thrijis (scientifically known as 

 Thysanoptera), and has been good enough to promise to allow me to make use of 

 some of his information when his investigations are complete, I have postponed 

 any remarks of my own for the present. 



