CLOVER AND PEA WEEVILS. 
15 
preying on slugs, snails, and worms, and also on insects in their 
various stages. Likewise they feed on fruit, and especially on 
Strawberries; on roots, such as Potatoes, Mangolds, &c.; and of 
Mangolds the Spotted Millepedes are so ravenously fond that slices 
may be very serviceably used as traps in garden cultivation. I have 
myself seen them swarming over the cut surface in quantities which 
would very materially lessen the damage to the more valuable ground 
fruit crops. They have been noticed doing harm at the roots of Wheat 
in spring, and also as sweeping off young Mangolds as the seed 
germinated. 
With regard to their life-history—the females are stated to lay 
their eggs from about the end of December until the following May, 
that is, until about the middle of the spring. The young resemble the 
parents throughout their lives, excepting that at first they have either 
no legs or only three pairs ; these increase in numbers (up to whatever 
may be the full number of pairs) at successive moults. They are two 
years before attaining maturity and power of reproduction. 
They are stated to propagate most freely in undisturbed land ; and 
where this is bare, or, on the other hand, there is a permanent crop, 
a frequent stirring of the surface-soil during the latter half of winter 
would be likely to do good in one case ; or in either of the above cases 
ploughing with a skim-coulter so as to turn the top slice well down 
and leave it there would bury down much infestation. 
But where the Millepedes are in a growing crop, there seems no 
way of destroying them in field cultivation. Salt and nitrate of soda 
will kill them if applied so as to touch them in solution, but this would 
be likely to kill the crop ; and if the above substances are merely 
applied dry, and allowed to melt gradually into the land, even at the 
rate of a tablespoonful to a pound of infested earth, they appear to do 
no good. 
If desirable to dislodge them in Clover, it would appear very possible 
that gas-lime (of course applied with due care), which sometimes brings 
on a beautiful growth of Clover, might be of use. But in the instances 
in which the Millepedes were brought before me last season, it was 
very likely that they were simply living on minute worms, or decayed 
matter, which was plentifully present. On another occasion it would 
perhaps be possible by careful microscopic examination to make out, at 
least to some degree, the nature of the food which they were consuming. 
Clover and Pea Weevils. Sitonct lineata, Linn, (and other species). 
Maggots of the Sitonas, or Clover Weevils, also occurred in earth 
round Clover-roots, and through the kindness of the Rev. Theodore 
Wood, F.E.S., of Baldock, Herts, I am favoured with an observation 
