On the Insects affecting the Turnip Crop. 



195 



as most naked maggots (\o, or, like hairy caterpillars, they spin a 

 web, in which they undergo their transformation or change ; but 

 the caterpillars of the cabbage-butterfly, and many others, merely 

 suspend themselves to a wall or rail, and there remain unprotected 

 during the winter. Tn this state they all rest without any symptoms 

 of life^ except when touched, until the substance of the enclosed 

 larva has become perfected into the various members of its first 

 parents, when, fourthly, out comes a flesh-fly, a butterfly, a rose- 

 moth, a click-lDeetle, a turnip-fly, &c. ; and this is called the 

 imago, or perfect state. 



The turnip-beetle, with whose history we will begin, belongs 

 to the ORDER COLEOPTERA^ from its wings, with which it flies, 

 being folded beneath two horny cases. It is included in the 

 FAMILY CHRYSOMELTD.^, or goldcn beetles, for certain scientific 

 reasons, in conformity with its structure, and is one of about one 

 hundred species forming the genus altica, sometimes written 



HALTICA. 



The striped turnip -beetle, or, as it has been called, the turnip- 

 fly, turnip-flea, earth flea-beetle, black-jack, &c._, is nam^ed in 

 our catalogues altica nemorum.'^ The former word^ derived 

 from the Greek, alludes to the leaping powers of the genus, and 

 the latter signifying that this species inhabits woods and groves, 

 which were more especially its haunts before the cultivation of the 

 turnip became general. 



The economy of this little pest has puzzled the man of science, 

 as well as the practical agriculturist, for many years ; and for 

 want of that rigid care which is indispensable in the investigation 

 of natural history, numerous errors have been adopted, which 

 have led to the promulgation of many false theories. Dr. Pearson 

 believed at first that the white spots or dots observable on more 

 than half the turnip-seeds were the eggs of the turnip-fly ; but he 

 was compelled to abandon that opinion, having had no flies 

 where the seed was sown in soil contained in pots covered with 

 bell-glasses." Rusticus," however, a contributor to the Ento- 

 mological Magazine,! so strongly insisted upon it, that seeds steeped 

 in brine^ or otherwise prepared, have been sold in London at the 

 seed-shops, to insure the grower against the attacks of the fly. It 

 is exceedingly likely that the white dots are occasioned by minute 

 flies alighting upon the seeds while they are drying, and deposit- 

 ing their excrement upon them, which is often white ; or they may 

 be particles of pollen from the flowers. It was, however, from the 



* Vide Cuvtis's Guide to an Arrangement of British Insects, second edi- 

 tion, column 74. 



t Entomological Magazine, vol. i. p. 363. 



