So far as I see, the “grubs” have not been the least the worse for the cold of the recent frost so long as they were in their self-made shelters below ground, but we carried devastation amongst hundreds of Cockchafer grubs, _Melolontha vulgaris_, by ploughing. The larvæ were too torpid to bury themselves, and the birds disposed of them very thoroughly.
Dr. Lindeman writes that he “had a district inspection set on foot” to find presence of _Tylenchus devastatrix_ in Russia, but “always with negative results.” This is very interesting.
PLATE XXVI. RAILWAY BRIDGE ON THE WYE, NEAR CHEPSTOW. ]
1, Adults; 2, anterior of female, showing mouthspear; 3, embryo in egg—all greatly magnified, anterior portion 440 times (from figures by Dr. J. Ritzema Bos). One of the causes of clover-sickness. “Tulip-rooted” oat plant.
FIG. 47.—STEM EEL-WORMS, _TYLENCHUS DEVASTATRIX_. ]
Did I tell you that my sister has been preparing a set of twenty-four diagrams—same size and in the same style as that of the Hessian fly? These are of our most destructive or most remarkable insect pests—and our Royal Agricultural Society has approved so highly of those which are printed that they have arranged for her to transfer to them the ownership of copyright of the set. This gratifies her very much. They pay her “out of pocket” expenses of printing and she presents the copyrights and her work. I think they form a very beautiful collection, and I believe the Society means to bring them out (together with my previous ones—p. 99) in little half-dozen sets. Thus, one set for village schools, one for fruit-growers, one for forest use. I hope they will be very useful in this way for those who do not wish to purchase the whole.
We have certainly good proof this year that in our insular climate cold does not “kill the grubs.” If it were possible it would even seem the Entomons were the better for it.
A letter came from Adelaide to announce Mr. Frazer Crawford’s decease. It was caused by chronic gout and heart disease. He had been as cheerful as usual, and when a friend left him about nine o’clock in the evening he set to work to prepare a scientific article, but not long after he went to bed. On the following morning, October 30th, the servant found the lamp still burning, but Mr. Crawford had quietly passed away as if in sleep with his book, a volume of Cryptogamic Botany, fallen from his hand. He was a perfectly indefatigable worker; even in the last month of his life, weighed down as he was by all the inconveniences and pains of hip disease besides those which took him from us, he prepared a long paper on vegetable and other plant pests for the “Garden and Field,” in which he wrote, besides a review of my Manual. And a warning paper by him on the danger of importing _Phylloxera_ appeared in the Report of the Bureau of Agriculture of South Australia accompanying the notice of his death. As a friend he was excessively valued by all who knew his kindness and his worth, and his loss is deeply regretted at Adelaide. To myself it is a very great cause of regret both as a true friend and an Entomological colleague.