Notfes on Insects. 169 



llie ground, or seek shelter under stones, whence they emerge as 

 soon as the spring is sufficiently, advanced, and attack the crops 

 almost imssediately they are above grotind. When the larva is 

 full fed it changes to a brown pupas at a small depth in the soil, 

 without spinning any cocoon, but forming a snaooth cavity in the 

 ground; in a few weeks this producer the perfect insect, similar 

 lo those species of which I now exhibit specimens. 



It is certainly not very encouraging to the farmer to reflect how 

 many plants they will attack, -and here is -a formidable list of those 

 %o v/hich oae or other of the species have been found more or less 

 destructive : — 



Cucumbers. — 30 sometimes found round one vine. 



Cabbages. — Whole fields cut down iu a night; 



Beans. — Frequently much injured. 



'Oats. — Fields completely devastated. 



Wheat. — Often very much injured, 



Indian Corn. — The whole crop sometimes disappears. 



Onions. — Occasionally eaten. 



Buckwheat — Do. 



Mangold Wurzel. — Much infested. 



Turnips. — Occasionally by English species. 



Grasses of various kinds. — Meadows sometimes stripped of all 

 vegetation. 



Cotton. — In th« south, larvae of the same habits and appearance 

 5ire very destructive to the young plants. 



The cnly reliable method of destroying the larvae is to dig 

 them up one by one from the roots of the plants, and this can be 

 done easily enough in the rows of Indian Corn, which is the crop 

 they appear to injure most, at least in this neighbourhood. The 

 labour would be well bestowed, as every larvae destroyed may be 

 ■considered as equivalent to at least half-a-dozen plants of corn 

 saved. It is said that by making deep holes in the fields, tliey 

 will fall in during their nightly wanderings, and being unable to 

 get up the perpendi(jular sides of the pits, owing to the crumbling- 

 earth breaking away under their weight, they are thus easily cap- 

 tured and may be killed at leisure. It is probable that a deep 

 trench kept free from weeds, and in good repair, dug all round 

 the fields, would preserve the crops from attack, but care must be 

 taken before night to remove anything, such as a bridge, boards, 

 &c,, by which they migl\t cross. 



