affectiiif) the Peas and Beans. 
405 
sickly, and then they fall an easy sacrifice to the insect tribes. 
If the season be cold and wet when early peas are committed to 
the earth, they frequently are infested by the Millipedes,* which 
eat into the softened and decomposing seeds ; and even if they 
have sj)routed, few of them are able to struggle through the soil 
when thus weakened, and the winter and early sown crops are 
consequently lost to the grower. 
Pea. and Bean Weevils. 
The next enemy these crops have to encounter are small 
beetles called Weevils, which either destroy the plants as fast as 
they push above the surface, or nibble the leaves and notch the 
edges when they have expanded. Most farmers are very imper- 
fectly acquainted with the economy of these insects, and it was a 
lonff time before eardeners could be convinced that it was a Wee- 
vil which caused them so much anxiety. Some very naturally 
accused the sparrows : traps were set for rats and mice ; lime 
strewed for slugs and snails; and toads were encouraged to extir- 
pate the woodlice ; but still the crops kept disappearing, as none 
of these precautions affected the wary enemy in his coat of mail. 
There were, however, both gardeners and farmers, whose close 
attention to the operations of nature, united with steady persever- 
ance, which generally leads to the truth, who eventually succeeded 
in detecting the real cause of the mischief. 
In favourable seasons the Weevils make their appearance at 
the end of March; but April is die month when they are most 
destructive to the pea-crops, and one then finds that healthy 
shoots are daily, if not hourly, disappearing in a most marvellous 
manner, without any apparent cause, so that spaces of a foot in 
length, and sometimes the entire rows, are lost, or the few that 
may be left are so weak that the produce can be reckoned of little 
value. The year 1844, if I may judge from the number of com- 
munications transmitted to me, appeared to be well suited to these 
Weevils, which were actively at work in thousands in the vicinity 
of Hertford at the end of March, continuing their operations for 
a fortnight, and entirely eating off the second and third sowing, 
when the plants had grown from two to four inches high. At 
this period of the year they issued from the ground from 9 to 10 
o'clock in the morning, to feed all day upon the peas : and they 
retired under the clods of earth on the approach of evening. 
They were equally troublesome at Stafford the first week in 
April, when they ate off" the early peas ; and in the Isle of Wight 
these Weevils were not less destructive, for there they attacked the 
beans as well. On the 30th of the same month I received from 
* lulus pulchellus and Polydesmus complanatus, Royal Agric. Jour., 
vol, v. p. 228. 
