84 First Report on Economic Zoology. 
celery and potatoes. They have been very abundant this year in 
many parts of the country, and have caused a great deal of harm to 
all kinds of roots. 
Various remedies have been suggested and used with varied results. 
Soot and lime broadcasted over the soil and worked in with a prong- 
hoe in an attack on turnip has been successful. Bran soaked in 
Paris green and placed in heaps just under or on the soil has been 
known to destroy them ; hundreds being poisoned by eating the 
arsenic on the bran. Ivainit, at the rate of 3 cwt. to the acre, has 
also been successful. In regard to the attack on potatoes, it is 
difficult to do any good, but with the celery, soot and lime broad- 
casted on each side of the rows would prove beneficial. 
One grower has recommended watering with paraffin emulsion. 
If the plants are young this would no doubt be an excellent remedy. 
The Pigmy Potato Beetle. 
(Bcithyscia ivollastoni , Jans.) 
Early in June, Mr. Stains, gardener to F. Monins, Escp, of Ring- 
would, near Dover, sent some potatoes badly damaged and full of 
small Snake Millepedes (vide pp. 15, 32, and 86) (Julus pulchellus). 
These often serious pests had undoubtedly done most of the damage. 
At the same time, either by accident or by intent, there were sent 
with the potatoes a few small brown beetles. These were identified 
by Mr. Waterhouse as Batliyscia wollastoni. 
Canon Fowler, in his “ British Coleoptera” (Vol. III., p. 71), says 
that this species is “ found in rotting seed potatoes.” Mr. Stains was 
so informed, and the subject of these little beetles dropped. But 
early in July they appeared upon the scene again. I noticed 
some “Up-to-Date” potatoes in my garden with the haulm badly 
damaged ; there were no signs of any larvae to be seen either by day 
or at night. My gardener said the damage was due to small “ brown 
bugs” in the soil, and on digging up some tubers I found them 
covered with this small beetle. Bather more than two-thirds of the 
crop proved unsound, some from “ rot,” but the majority owing to the 
ravages of this beetle. 
Not only is the sound \ seed potato eaten, but the tubers themselves. 
The beetles work first of all along the surface of the potato, eating 
surface galleries, and then tunnel little round holes into the tubers ; 
these tunnels and channels soon decay and turn brown, and so the 
tuber rots away. An attacked potato cut in two looks as if riddled 
with fine shot. The seed potatoes seem to be hollowed out ; whether 
