314 Report of the Consulting Entomologist for 1885. 
United States, as to the damage the sparrow is causing by 
driving away useful birds, as well as by its own voracity ; and 
I have recently been informed by Mr. I. A. Lintner, State 
Entomologist of New York State, that a society has been formed 
in New Jersey, which offers a bounty for sparrows' heads. In 
South Australia, also, measures are being suggested to keep them 
in check, for there, as elsewhere, it is not only the personal 
attacks of these birds on all that they take a fancy to that is 
injurious, but the driving away of true helpers. 
Members of the Wirrall Farmers' Club, who occupy land 
which is quite in the country, report that, with the help of their 
Sparrow Club, they have not been so free from these pests for a 
long time as at present ; where land lay near large towns it was 
found impossible to check attack. To all who consult me on 
the subject, I most strongly advise that they should do their 
best by every possible means, save such as would involve the 
infraction of the law in close time, to get rid of these injurious 
birds. 
The remaining chief point of the observations of the year has 
been the very serious amount of attack of turnip caterpillars, 
mainly those of the common turnip-moth Agrotis segetum. This 
attack has been reported from eleven counties, and has caused 
much loss. Sometimes as many as twenty of these caterpillars 
were found at one root. None of the applications which have 
been tried to clear these grubs — as of lime, salt, sulphur, or 
soot — have proved of use, as far as has been reported ; but both 
in the States and in this country it has been found that cater- 
pillar attack was either not present, or was lessened in amount, 
where land had been well salted during previous cultivation. 
The only remedies which have been found of use have been much 
hoeing and thorough disturbance of the surface-soil, when these 
surface caterpillars appear early in the year ; likewise hand- 
picking by turning them out from the roots, which is a tedious, 
though reliable, cure so long as the condition of the crop admits 
of it. When a crop has been destroyed, the grubs which remain 
may be much cleared by turning on pigs to root them out, and 
by skimming the surface in bad weather, such as alternate frost 
and thaw. It is of great importance to get them destroyed on 
infested land, as they otherwise probably survive the winter, 
and continue their ravages in spring. 
I have pleasure in being able to state that serviceable atten- 
tion to prevention of loss by insect ravages is being increasingly 
directed to the subject, not only at home, but in various parts 
of the British possessions, regarding which communications are 
addressed to myself as your Entomologist. 
