Galerucidæ—Turnip-fly, etc.
The striped Turnip-beetle, Haltica nemorum, commonly called the Turnip-fly, Turnip-flea, Earth-flea-beetle, Black-jack, etc., is a well known species from the ravages the perfect insect commits upon the turnip. In Devonshire, England, in the year 1786, the loss caused by these insects alone was valued at £100,000 sterling. And in the spring of 1837, the vines in the neighborhood of Montpellier were attacked to so great an extent by another species, Haltica oleracea, in the perfect state, that fears were entertained for the plants, and religious processions were instituted for the purpose of exorcising the insects.236
Anatolius says that if the seeds of radishes, turnips, and other esculents be sown in the hide of a tortoise, the plants when grown will not be eaten by the fly, nor hurt by noxious animals or birds.237 Paladius has also related the method of drying the seeds in the hide of this animal,238 and of sowing them.239