PUKPLE CLOVEE WEEVILS. 
9 
The only thing which it seems possible to do is to lessen the 
amount of weevil-presence in the neighbourhood beforehand, and, 
as the points of this treatment have been so well given many 
years ago by M. Herpin that it is hardly possible to state them 
more clearly, I quote them from the translation in Curtis’s ‘ Farm 
Insects ’:— 
“ 1st. Cut early, and feed off (while green) the Clover crops which 
are known, or supposed to be, much infested by the Apion. 
“ 2nd. Carefully avoid allowing the Clover crops to remain more 
than two years in succession on the same ground. 
“ 3rd. Avoid also allowing the Clover which is much infested by 
the weevil to ripen and run to seed. 
“ 4th. Alternate and vary the culture.” 
The 5th suggestion is that, if the Clover is stacked green, and sub¬ 
jected to a sufficiently high fermentation to turn it brown, that the 
maggots contained in it will be destroyed. At the present day the 
use of the silo would assist in this case. 
Where infested Clover is stacked in the common manner great 
numbers of weevils escape from it, and very probably something 
might be done to kill these by throwing quicklime or gas-lime on 
them. When they are in such numbers (as has been recorded) that 
there are scores on one plant, and they are regularly sweeping on from 
the stack from which they started, something might be done to get rid 
of these hordes. When properly developed the Purple Clover Weevil 
has a powerful pair of wings, but in those which I examined, which 
developed in captivity in a closed box filled with Clover-heads, so that 
there were no favourable circumstances for expansion, most of the 
wings were abortive, or not properly formed. Where this is brought 
about in farm practice by the above mentioned methods of stacking or 
otherwise, it would be a great check on spread of the pest. 
The habits of the two kinds of Eed Clover weevils are considered 
to be similar. 
The measures suggested by Mr. Whitehead of feeding off infested 
plants in autumn by folding sheep on the leys, and likewise of burning 
refuse Clover-heads after threshing, could not fail to be of service. 
