COLEOPTEEA OR BEETLES. 135 



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

 of years where the beetle is present ; this wUl 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 then- 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, 

 Saprinus vire-xens, one of the Histeridae, feeds off the larvEe 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 

 [Meligetlies ceneug), much smaller than Phcedon betulce, which 

 eats the flo\vers, and the turnip-weevil {Centorhynchus assimilis), 

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

 and turnip pods. 



Asparagus-beetle (Criooeris ASPARAni). 



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 C. aqmrar/i is about } of an inch. 

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

 in the same group as the Chrysomelidse. The insects hibernate 

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

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

 eggs on the stalks in rows of three or four : in from four to ten 

 days these hatch into dirty olive-green-coloured larvse, 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 

 Chrysomelida3, they can exude out of the mouth a drop of black 

 fluid on being touched. In two weeks they are full fed and fall 

 to the ground, where they form a cell and pupate. The yellow 



