132 COLEOPTERA OR BEETLES. 



feature usually noticed early in the morning after a heavy 

 dew. When the turnips get into rough leaf the damage they 

 do is not so great ; but even then they are destructive, eating 

 away at the tissues until the leaves are almost skeletons. 

 The female lays her eggs upon the turnip leaf, on the rough 

 under-surface, often choosing a place near the ribs to deposit 

 them. In from four to six days the ova hatch into minute 

 larvae with large brown heads and biting jaws, six small jointed 

 legs in front, and a number of hairs over the body. The 

 larvae at once burrow into the middle of the turnip leaf, and 

 there tunnel about in the parenchyma for six or seven days, 

 when they attain their fully fed state, being about one-sixth of 

 an inch long. On reaching maturity they leave the leaf and 

 fall to the ground, where they pupate just under the soil. The 

 pupa is a pale-coloured body, with the parts of the future flea- 

 beetle marked out upon it. In this position they remain ten 

 days, when the mature beetle appears. There are a great 

 number of broods during the year, the last or winter brood- 

 hibernating in all manner of places, — beneath stones, amongst 

 the rough grass of the headlands, in the hedgerows, and wher- 

 ever else they can get shelter. Cabbage, thousand-headed kale, 

 broccoli — in fact, all cultivated and wUd Cruciferse — are alike 

 attacked. 



Prevention and Remedies. — There are some hundreds of ways 

 recorded of preventing and destroying this pest, but for all 

 practical purposes they can be reduced to some half-a-dozen 

 methods. Needless to say, the state of the land and the 

 weather affect this pest very much. If plants can be got 

 into the rough leaf there is little fear of any great loss ; 

 good cultivation therefore helps to keep down the damage. 

 "Where we are subject to the fly, repeatedly steeping the seed 

 in kerosene or paraffin is very often successful, especially if 

 germination is rapid. ^ The smell remains on the seed when it is 

 pushed up above-ground and wards off the fly : a great number 

 ^ Turpentine has also been used with excellent results. 



