40 



INJURIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI, 



[June 1896. 



of legs of the same colour. The antennae have four joints. The 

 lower end of the body is curved and swollen, and the blue or 

 violet coloured contents of the gorged abdomen are plainly seen 

 through the skin. 



The grubs live and destroy for three summers, working near 

 the surface among roots and fibres in the summer and autumn, 

 and going down deep into the earth during the winter. Their 

 mischief is not considerable during the first year, but in the 

 second and third years the amount of food they consume is 

 almost incredible. Towards the end of the third year the grubs 

 go down from 18 to 26 inches deep in the earth, and pupation 

 takes place in cells of an oval shape, from which the cockchafers 

 come in the following spring, and begin to feed upon trees, 

 shrubs, and green crops near them. 



Remedies and Methods of Prevention. 



The best way of preventing injury from cockchafers and their 

 grubs, is to destroy the former when they appear upon trees and 

 shrubs in the spring. In France and Germany, regular and 

 systematic warfare is waged against cockchafers. They are 

 beaten down from the trees on to tarred boards, or into large 

 sacks, with poles and sticks, and killed. The best time 

 for this is the early morning and when the weather is dry. 

 These insects are generally sluggish during the daytime, and fly 

 in the twilight ; but they do not go far from where they were 

 reared, so that those who destroy them systematically reap the 

 principal benefits. It is important, however, that there should 

 be unity of action as in Continental countries, and observations 

 should be made in infested localities to note the triennial 

 swarming time, in order to take measures to destroy the beetles 

 as they appear. In France and Germany, the years when 

 swarming is expected are regularly chronicled. In nurseries and 

 seed-beds in infested places, nets with fine meshes spread over 

 freshly sown seeds for a few weeks in the spring would prevent 

 egg-deposition. When young trees and shrubs, in nurseries or 

 recently planted out, wither and droop, examination should be 

 made round their roots for cockchafer grubs. German and 

 French foresters put traps of freshly peeled, tender rind, and 

 small green boughs — Fangrinden and Fangknilppel— close to 

 young trees and shrubs where there is infestation. The grubs 

 are enticed away by these and may be taken under them. 



Where grass land is badly attacked, the earth around spots 

 where the grass is dead or dying should be dug up, the grubs 

 picked^out as far as possible, and hot lime or gas-lime worked in. 



It is very difficult to affect these grubs by means of top 

 dressings, as they go deeply into the earth. Prolonged folding 

 of sheep — especially ewes and lambs — on infested grass land, and 

 feeding them with swedes or mangel carted on, has been found 

 very efficacious. 



