388 Annual Report for 1913 of the Zoologist. 
become fully fed and have dropped to the ground, in which 
they burrow to a depth of about two inches. Towards the end 
of August they change to pupae — the resting, chrysalis-like 
stage of the insect. These pupae are uniformly formed in the 
soil ; never under the bark or in similar shelters as generally 
stated. They are quite naked, forming no cocoon, though each 
occupies a little smooth-walled chamber in the soil. They are 
at first white, and the legs, antennae and wings of the future 
beetles are easily recognisable. Later they shrink and become 
yellowish, gradually assuming the form of the mature beetle. 
By the end of September many of the pupae have changed to 
beetles, and practically all have done so by the end of October, 
and the winter is passed in the mature form, which, however, 
appears to remain inactive until the following May. 
Treatment. 
The two most important measures to be undertaken are : 
(■ a ) The collecting of the beetles, early in the morning, or 
on a dull day, by shaking the blossoming plants over tarred 
boards or sacks soaked in paraffin. This has been long 
practised, and remains the only measure by which the attack, 
when it has once declared itself, can be mitigated, for any 
kind of spraying during the blossoming period seems to be 
impracticable. 
(&) Treating the soil, as soon as the crop has been gathered, 
with some preparation calculated to destroy the grubs which 
have newly gone to earth before they change to pupae, and 
are somewhat less vulnerable. Experiments have been made 
with various insecticides such as lime, vaporite, carbon 
bisulphide, &c., and though the precise results in each case are 
not yet to hand, there was a noticeable decrease this summer in 
the beetle in plots which had been treated in 1912, though some 
neighbouring loganberry plants which had been left untreated 
were badly infested. 
Miscellaneous Notes. 
Two of the applications received furnished rather striking 
evidence of the fact, seldom recognised by agriculturists, that 
wasps, though a terrible nuisance at times, are, throughout most 
of their lives, highly beneficial insects. In the first case a 
correspondent sent me the sweepings of the floor beneath a 
wasps’ nest which had been built in an outhouse in Surrey and 
they contained hundreds of wings of moths — chiefly of noctua 
moths and especially of the “ Yellow Underwing.” These 
moths are the parents of the “ surface caterpillars ” so injurious 
to root and other crops. In the second case a number of wasps 
