28 
HALE HOURS WITH INSECTS. 
[Packard. 
Pig. 16 . 
ii 
m 
ryi 
m 
w 
us 
Salt on sandy soils is considered to be efficacious, but not 
on heavier clay lands. In a garden or srhall field they may 
be got rid of by strewing about slices of potato, turnip 
or apple, and examining the under sides every morning, 
when numbers will usually be found feeding upon the bait. 
Moles are very useful in destroying them in 
meadows, and a large number of Fig 17> 
our small birds devour them with 
avidity ; ducks, turkeys and fowls 
will pick them up in ploughed 
fields, and toads are not averse to 
making a meal upon them. Our 
advice then is, break up and fallow 
the infested wheatfields, ploughing 
often, and burning up the rub¬ 
bish ; and encourage in every way 
the farmer’s best friends, the small 
birds. Make it an absolute law 
of the household that not one of Luminous 
Fire Fly. them is to be shot or stoned, get Wire orm 
your neighbors to do the same, and believe us, not many 
years will pass before you will find your insect plagues enor¬ 
mously diminished.” The concluding remarks apply with 
much force in dealing with all our noxious insects. 
The May Beetle. —(Fig. 18, larva, pupa and beetle, after 
Riley.) Our readers may recognize old acquaintances in 
the insects here figured. The grub or white worm is abun¬ 
dant in gardens, lawns and grass lands, and the parent 
beetle or Dor-bug is the insect which so pertinaciously taps 
against our windows at night, and if successful in effecting 
an entrance, wheels its “droning flight” about the room to 
the terror and confusion of those within. The grub is a 
large, soft-bodied, fleshy, white worm, as thick as the little 
finger, about an inch and a half long, with a honey-yellowish 
or pale horn-colored head. Its skin is so thin and trans- 
28 
