188 
WILLOW. 
Willow Beetle. Phratora vitellines , Linn. 
Phratora vitellinje. 
Willow Beetle, caterpillars, and eggs, magnified; lines showing nat. length. 
Willow Beetle attack was excessively injurious in the past season 
at various localities. About the middle of May I received the following 
account of the great damage that was being caused in their plantations 
by this infestation, from Messrs. W. T. Ellmore & Son, High Street, 
Leicester:—“We have a piece of Willow ground some 50 acres in 
extent, which is literally infested with them, to the detriment of the 
crop. Acres and acres of the crop were last year virtually destroyed 
with this pest, and we employed quite a small host of people with tins 
with paraffin in to catch them, and we were hoping that our efforts 
would have been rewarded by their absence this spring. In addition 
to what we caught last spring, in the autumn we put faggots all 
about our ground, made with reed and other tubular plants, pieces of 
bark and other rubbish, which were instrumental in collecting very 
many, and these we fired in the early months of the year; but during 
these last few days the beetles have come out almost in millions. We 
have now as many caught as will fill a good-sized bucket, by which 
you can judge how we are infested.” 
On June 10th, Mr. John Harrison, President of the Leicestershire 
Chamber of Agriculture, also notified to me that “ we have now a 
trouble amongst the Willows, a large grower in this locality having 
suffered greatly.” 
On Aug. 24th, Mr. Weld Blundell, of Ince Blundell Hall, Blun- 
dellsands, Lancashire, enquired regarding a Willow Beetle which had C 
destroyed all the Willows on his estate. Later on, on Oct. 26th, 
