affecting tlie Pea-crops^ Blanr/old-wurzel, and Beet. 413 



food I am not prepared to saj^ but I should think not, as the 

 skins are very tender. I have seen the leaves of docks and bur- 

 docks as well as the celery/"^' blistered from the mining of the 

 maggots of different species of flies to a large amount^ and the 

 only remedy is to nip them in the leaf, for they are so delicate 

 that a very slight pinch will maim them. Parasites no doubt 

 keep them under, and we may trust to them for assistance. 



TiPULA OLERACEA. The Crane-fly, or Daddy-long-legs. 



This universally distributed and mischievous gnat, by dropping 

 its eggs in the field, garden, and pasture-land, annually causes 

 serious losses to the cultivator by the destruction of various crops 

 as well as flowers, j Not having space to illustrate the insect 

 here, I shall leave its economy for a future opportunity, and 

 merely state now, that two crops of mangold- wurz el plants were 

 successively carried off by the larvEe, or grubs, as they are called, 

 which are the offspring of these flies, in the spring of 1845, near 

 Southall, in Middlesex ; and in the second week of June they 

 destroyed a large plot of the same plants in a field at Hayes. 

 On examining the dead and dying plants, we found the maggots 

 about an inch below the surface of the soil, and close to the 

 roots of the infested plants, which had been eaten through by 

 them. As they swarm in all grass-lands with other allied species, 

 it is not safe to sow beet or turnips immediately after pasture-land 

 has been broken up, without previously paring and burning, 

 salting, or liming the land. 



In the autumn, if the crown of the mangold-wurzel begins to 

 rot, it is immediately taken possession of by numerous varieties of 

 insects. I remember, at the end of October, 1846, findini? vast 

 numbers of specimens of a small beetle called Cercyon holeto 

 2ohagum.\ which were inhabiting the cavities eaten probably by 

 slugs. It is very smooth and shining, oval, of a pitchy colour, 

 with the tips of the elytra, or v/ing- cases, ochreous ; the clubbed 

 horns and legs are tawny ; it is not larger than a small turnip- 

 seed. With them were multitudes of a minute, shining, tawny 

 Acarus, oval in form, and looking like seeds when the six short 

 legs were folded up. It appears to be the Acarus, or Uropoda 

 umbilica, v/hich attaches itself to beetles. § 



This terminates the history of the insects which more or less 

 injure the mangold-wurzel crops, and the following is 



* The mag-^ots in the dock-leaves produce a fly called Antlwmyia so- 

 tennis. Those in the celery-leaves change to a handsome fly named Te- 

 phritis Onopordinis. Vide Gardeners* Chronicle, vol. i, p. 660'. 



'I' Gardeners' Chron., vol. i. p. 612. 

 - % Ciirtis's Guide, Genus 115, No. 9. 



§ Journal of Royal Agric. Soc,,vol. v. p. 22G, pi. J. fls:. 'J9. 



