INSECT AND OTHER PLANT ENEMIES, 



77 



vantage may be taken of this by holding a box 

 covered with tissue-paper, or a tarred tray, 

 beneath the bunches of grapes, which should be 

 gently shaken to cause the caterpillars to drop, 

 when they may easily be destroyed. 



Lettuce Fly (Anthomyia Laducce). — The 

 males of this fly are black and bristly all over the 

 body and legs; the abdomen, however, is gray, 

 with a black blotch, The females are much 

 lighter in hue, with a chestnut band on the face. 

 The grubs are dirty-white, legless, cut short at 

 the tail-end, and toothed there. The perfect flies 

 appear in April, May, and June, and the females 

 lay their eggs on the flowers of the Lettuce. 

 The grubs hatch out and feed upon the seed 

 during August and September; they change to 

 the pupa state and hibernate in the Lettuce 

 heads or in the ground till April again. 



Remedies. — Those who grow Lettuces for seed 

 and seedsmen should be most interested in the 

 eradication of this pest. All the old stems 

 should be burnt to destroy any pupae that may 

 be upon them, and the seeds sifted so as to re- 

 tain the pupa?, while the seeds, being smaller, 

 would pass through. 



Mice, — The common or house-mouse (Mus 

 Musculus) needs no description, and its depre- 

 dations in vineries, stores, fruit-rooms, and seed- 

 rooms, as well as in the open garden, are but 

 too well known. The Long-tailed Field-mouse 

 (Mus sylvaticus) is also responsible sometimes 

 for a deal of injury in gardens, nurseries, and 

 fields, by digging up corms, bulbs, and destroying 

 young trees. It is larger than the former, and 

 similar in colour to the common brown rat. 



Remedies. — Stop up all holes by which houses 

 are entered, with broken glass, or stones and 

 cement Encourage a good mouse cat or two 

 in the potting-shed or even fruit-houses, or allow 

 them a small hole somewhere for egress and in- 

 gress. The Perpetual Mouse-trap is a very use- 

 ful invention, and requires emptying frequently, 

 but no setting. The bait is as secure when the 

 mice are inside as when outside. This trap 

 may also be employed for the long -tailed 

 species. 



Nut- weevil (Balaninus nucum). — The perfect 

 weevil is only 2\ to nearly 3 lines long, and 

 black, but covered with gray scales, and having 

 rusty legs and a long, bent, reddish-brown beak 

 supporting elbowed antennae on its middle. The 

 females pierce young hazel-nuts and filberts 

 with their beak early in summer, laying a single 

 egg in each. This gives rise to a fleshy, legless, 

 white maggot with a brown head. It feeds upon 

 the kernel, often causing the nut to fall prema- 



turely, but finally bores its way out and hiber- 

 nates in the earth till spring. 



Remedies, — Choice filberts should not be 

 planted in proximity to plantations or copses of 

 hazel. Practise good cultivation, manuring the 

 trees and digging the ground annually; many 

 of the hibernating maggots will be destroyed 

 or turned up to frost and birds. Collect and 

 burn fallen nuts before the grubs have time to 

 leave them. The old weevils might be beaten 

 or shaken down on a cloth spread beneath the 

 trees in the early morning during May and June, 

 or even later if still present. 



Pea Moth (Endopisa proximana). — The fore- 

 wings of this little moth measure \ inch in 

 expanse, and are olive-brown, with an eye-spot 

 and a few yellowish lines. The caterpillar 

 lives in pea-pods, and is dirty-white, with a 

 brown head. The moths make their appearance 

 in June, and generally lay one egg on each pea- 

 pod. The egg gives rise to a caterpillar, which 

 pierces the wall of the pod and feeds on the peas 

 during summer, rendering them moth-eaten, 



Remedies. — When pea-pods are pulled green, 

 a great many of the caterpillars would be de- 

 stroyed in that way. Pods left hanging upon 

 infested plants would still contain larva?, and 

 the plants in such cases should be pulled up and 

 burnt immediately after the crop is gathered. 

 Those caterpillars that are allowed to escape 

 form a silken cocoon in the earth, and reside in 

 it till spring, when they change to pupae and 

 reach the perfect state again in June. By trench- 

 ing the ground, or digging it two spits deep, 

 the cocoons would be buried too deeply for the 

 moths to get up through the soil. 



Plum Sawfly (Hoplocampa fulvicomis). — The 

 perfect fly is of a shining -black, with yellow 

 legs, often brownish-yellow, and four transparent 

 wings, and generally lays one egg in the calyx 

 of each flower of the Plum. The grub has twenty 

 legs, and is whitish, or tinted with a testaceous 

 hue, and the head is brown. It penetrates the 

 young fruit, and feeds upon the stone while yet 

 quite soft, so that the plums never attain full 

 size, but drop. The grub takes four to six- 

 weeks to attain full size, and may leave one fruit 

 to attack another, and finally pupates in the soil. 



Remedies. — Make a practice of going through 

 | affected plantations of Plums every morning; 

 j collect the fallen fruits, and burn or bury them 

 ' deeply. It would even be more certain of secur- 

 I ing the grubs in the injured fruits if a cloth is 

 j spread under the trees and the latter lightly 

 shaken to cause the grub-eaten plums to fall. 

 Those showing an exudation of gum might even 



