1882.] 
Economic Entomology . 
211 
comely creatures the crane-flies, or daddy longlegs ( Tipula 
oleracea , T. maculosa , and T. paludosa). When in the larva 
or grub state these creatures feed in a most destructive 
manner, cutting off the stems of grass, corn, &c., just be- 
neath the surface of the soil, so that the plant withers. 
According to Miss Ormerod they destroyed in 1880 hundreds 
of acres of winter-wheat in the neighbourhood of York. 
But grass has also other enemies. The wireworms, or larvae 
of the various kinds of Agriotes, include it among the crops 
to which they pay special attention. In addition the larvae 
of other Elateridae, similar in their structure and habits, 
such as Ctenicera pectinicornis and cuprea , are a great nuisance 
in the grass-lands of Wales and the North of England. In 
short, whoever carefully notes the variety and the num- 
bers of plant-destroying inseCts, and takes account of their 
ravages from season to season, will not think five shillings 
per acre an excessive estimate of the loss thus yearly occa- 
sioned. Here, therefore, we have a tax of about six millions 
sterling levied in the first place upon the farmers and gar- 
deners of England and Wales, and of course through them 
affecting the whole community. It need scarcely be neces- 
sary to expound at length that the more cockchafers, daddy 
longlegs, wireworms, and the like the farmer has to feed, 
the lower wages he can afford to pay his labourers, the 
smaller must be his profits and his consumption of manu- 
factured goods. That in many seasons our estimate might 
be doubled, or even quadrupled, without exceeding the truth 
is but too probable. Every agriculturist knows well the 
meaning of finding himself compelled to re-sow afield where 
the first crop has been eaten up. 
Miss Ormerod has made these inseCts her especial study, 
and in the work before us she gives a clear, practical 
description of their appearance, their habits, the circum- 
stances that favour their increase, and the most feasible 
means for their destruction. In many cases, it must be duly 
noted, the best remedy consists in restoring the balance of 
Nature, with which we, like most other nations, have igno- 
rantly tampered. The great patrons and promoters of 
inseCt pests are boys who destroy birds’-nests, the bird- 
catchers who swarm out from our large cities on Sundays 
and public holidays, gamekeepers, and, perhaps more than 
all, those crowds of roughs who— without regard to “ close 
times ” and to the rights of property — shoot down every 
winged creature whensoever and wheresoever found. The 
true sportsman, if he would only instruct his keepers to be 
less indiscriminate in slaughtering insectivorous birds, — e.g ., 
