474 
Ohsermtions on the various Insects 
the earth by night, and eats into the stem of the corn close to the 
surface and feeds upon the pith, retiring on the approach of day 
and lying concealed upwards of 6 inches deep in the earth. 
"Their devastations were confined to the corn-fields, and were 
comparatively trifling even in those fields where vetches or potatoes 
were cultivated with the wheat ; and the wheat, rye, and barley 
fields contiguous to vetch and potatoe fields were iiot attacked. 
In a field which had been first sown with wheat, and destroyed, 
and again sown with wheat and vetches togelher, marks of the 
devastating pcvers of the insects on this second sowing were 
observed, together with a number of pupae in the earth. The 
destruction commenced in those fields wliich lay near pastures, 
in the vicinity of rape, fallow, and stubble fields, and spread from 
them : as the ravages were greatest in the beginning of spring, the 
larva3 appeared to have retired to the pasture lands for their 
winter-quarters, and thence proceeded to attack the neighbouring 
fields. Their great numbers in fields lying near stubble and 
fallow fields is easily explained, as they are the offspring of those 
which, the preceding year, lived on the crops grown in those 
fields." 
Sig. Passerini of Florence also notices in a Memoir " the 
ravages occasioned by larvae in the winter and spring of 1832-3, 
on the wheat in the provinces of Bologna, llomagna, and Ferrara, 
by devouring the cellular tissue of the leaves and stalks of the 
young plants, and thus causing them to perish : these attacks are 
made during the night time, the larvae concealing themselves 
under ground during the day. They had been ascertained by 
Professor J. Bertolini of Bologna to be the larvae of Zabrus 
rjibbus and Calathus latus* and appear to be equally injurious. 
K?ig. Passerini suggests to plough up the land, and then to turn in 
a flock of poultry, which would greedily pick up the larvae." j 
The Halle committee also recommended that the crows and 
other birds which live upon insects should on no account be de- 
.stroyed, and they suggested that children might be employed in 
the fields to turn over stones and clods in the daytime for the 
beetles, and in the evening and at night tiiey might be swept off 
the cars of corn with a net formed of a ring of strong wire, having 
a bag attached to it made of coarse canvass, about 18 inches long; 
the ring must have a ferrule to fasten it to the end of a strong 
light stick. As soon as the first slight frosts set in, the end of 
autumn, the infected lands should be ploughed deep, by which 
means the larvae would be exposed and killed, or picked up by 
rooks and other birds ; but it is said that this process, to prove 
* I find Zimmermann has stated that two otlier Carabidffi, Amara commu- 
nis and A. trivialis, feed also upon the wheat, 
t Trans. Entom. Soc, vol. i. p. liv. 
