Short Notes and Queries. 



77 



by preparing us for coming attack. The common cockchafer is quiet 

 under the leafage in the heat of the day, and may then be shaken down 

 and destroyed ; and, though we do not often suffer from injury caused 

 by the grub of this beetle to the amount to which it ravages in Germany, 

 yet the extent to which it has destroyed young pine plantations near 

 Salisbury in the last two years shows that we need to keep it in check, 

 lest it should rise to be as severe a pest as the grubs of various kinds of 

 chafers are now proving in the Southern Island of New Zealand. The 

 daddy-longlegs grubs come out at night to feed, or travel on the surface, 

 and are then open to rolling or other measures of destruction ; some of 

 our turnip and cabbage caterpillars are similarly open to attack at night, 

 or in the dusk hours, and the great caterpillars of the death's-head moth, 

 which sometimes do great harm to the leafage of the potato, are variable 

 in their time of feeding, so that it is desirable for someone interested in 

 the matter to ascertain the habits of the special caterpillars before setting 

 destructive operations on foot. The click beetle, the parent of the wire- 

 worm, may be swept up in great numbers in the evening from grass ; 

 and, on the other hand, the turnip flea-beetle rejoices in the sunshine, 

 and then flies far and spreads rapidly. It is points such as these that we 

 need to know more of ; it is the province of the entomologist to give the 

 name of the insect, and to know the precise history of its method and 

 place of existence ; but it is the province of the agriculturalist to notice, 

 in real practical and continuous observation, the various influences which 

 act upon it, and, may I not add, when observed to make them known. 

 It is a matter of great importance — it is nothing less than the daily bread 

 of the nation, which, for want of attention, is being in many cases abso- 

 lutely thrown to the insect-vermin, whilst the landholder is distressed for 

 want of the crops which need not have been lost. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS.— Children's I'lowers : the Friends of their 

 Rambles and their Play." London: Religious Tract Society, 1882. — We 

 have received a copy of the above from the author, and though we are 

 not quite sure that in some respects it comes within our scope, yet we 

 cannot refrain from giving it a word or two of praise. It professes to be 

 a book written for children, and for the purpose of interesting them, and 

 giving them instruction about our common wayside flowers ; and for this 

 purpose all must concede that it is an eminent success. We know 

 children who can barely read, but who can understand what is read to 

 them in simple language, who are quite captivated with it — who will 

 gather all the flowers they meet with in their rambles through the flelds, 

 and eagerly demand of nurse or teacher to read to them what this book 

 says about them. Each flower and plant is described in simple, untech- 

 nichal language, that any child can understand, shows how, by dissecting 

 them, they can compare the various components of the flowers and leaves 

 of each plant with others, thus imparting both interest and instruction, 

 and no doubt will sow the seeds of future and further enquiry into these 



