GOLBOPTEEA OR BEETLES. 153 



reeds, &c. It is advisable to stop growing mustard for a couple 

 of years where the beetle is present ; this will be found to lessen 

 their numbers rapidly, and also cabbage-crops must be given up 

 for the year. Various dressings on the young plants to destroy 

 the first brood are advantageously applied as for turnip-flea. 

 These beetles migrate in a body, and thus can be stopped going 

 from field to field by cutting a small trench across their line of 

 march and filling it with tar. Although they are winged, they 

 seem to use their wings little when doing the damage. A beetle, 

 8aprinus virescens, one of the Histeridae, feeds off the larvae of 

 the Mustard-beetle, and mimics that insect in appearance so 

 closely that only a practised eye can separate them. 



Two other beetles attack mustard — namely, the Blossom-beetle 

 {Meligethes ceneus), much smaller than Phwdon hetulce, which 

 eats the flowers, and the turnip-weevil {Ceutorhynchus assimilis), 

 a grey long-snouted species which lays its eggs in the mustard 

 and turnip seed-pods. 



Asparagus-beetle (Crioobris asparagi). 



The Asparagus-beetle is well known in gardens in the South 

 of England, and often does a great deal of harm to asparagus- 

 shoots and also to the seed-heads. It is a dark bluish-green 

 beetle, with a rusty-red thorax, yellow patches on the elytra and 

 red edges to them. In length G. asparagi is about \ of an inch. 

 It belongs to the group of beetles called Eupoda, and therefore is 

 in the same group as the Chrysomelidas. The insects hibernate 

 under rubbish or loose bark, and come out from the middle to 

 end of April or May, soon laying their large, elongate-oval, dark- 

 brown eggs on the fronds in rows of three or four : in from four 

 to ten days these hatch into dirty olive-green-coloured larvae, 

 with six black legs and a pair of foot-like tubercles on each 

 segment, and an anal pair by which they hold firmly to the 

 plant. Like many Chrysomelidae, they can exude out of the 

 mouth a drop of black fluid on being touched. In two weeks 



