many of them, they may seem to be defended by the earth that covers them, do not escape the attack of insect-enemies.-The carrot, which forms a valuable part of the crop of the sand-land farms in Suffolk, is often very much injured, as is also the parsnip, by a small centipede (Geophilus electricus), and another polypod (Polydesmus complanatus), which eat into various labyrinths the upper part of their roots; and they are both sometimes totally destroyed by the maggot of some dipterous insect, probably one of the Muscide. I had an opportunity of noticing this in the month of July, in the year 1812, in the garden of our valued friend the Rev. Revett Sheppard, of Offton in Suffolk. The plants appeared many of them in a dying state; and upon drawing them out of the ground to ascertain the cause, these larvæ were found with their head and half of their body immersed in the root in an oblique direction, and in many instances they had eaten off the end of it. The larva of a little moth (Hamilis daucella), described by Bouché, feeds upon the seeds both of the carrot and parsnip, covering the umbel with a silken web, and in some years destroys the whole crop.2

America has made us no present more extensively beneficial, compared with which the mines of Potosi are worthless, than the potato. This invaluable root, which is now so universally cultivated, is often, in this country, considerably injured by the two insects first mentioned as attacking the carrot, and also by the wire-worm. The Death's-head hawk-moth (Acherontia Atropos) in its larva state feeds upon its leaves, though without much injury. In America it is said to suffer much from two beetles (Cantharis cinerea and vittata), of the same genus with the blister-beetle 3; and another species, C. verticalis, in 1839, wholly destroyed the leaves of the crops at Volterra in Tuscany. In the island of Barbadoes some hemipterous insect, supposed to be a Tettigonia, occasionally attacks them. In 1734 and 1735 vast swarms devoured almost every vegetable production of that island, particularly the potato, and thus occasioned such a failure of this excellent esculent, especially in one parish, that a collection was made throughout the island for the relief of the poor, whose principal food it forms.

The chief dependence of our farmers for the sustenance of their cattle in the winter is another most valuable root, the turnip, the introduction of which into our system of agriculture has added millions to our national revenue; and they have often to lament the loss and distress occasioned by a failure in this crop, of which these minor animals are the cause. On its first coming up, as soon as the cotyledon leaves are unfolded, a whole host of little jumping beetles, composed chiefly of Haltica Nemorum, called by farmers the fly and black jack, but assisted also by other species,

1 The larvæ above noticed were probably those of Psila Rosa Meigen (Psilomyia Rose Macquart), which Köllar (p. 161.) describes as attacking carrots, residing chiefly in the main root near the end.

2 Köllar on Ins. inj. to Gardeners, &c. 155.

5 Illiger, Mag. i. 256.

4 Passerini, quoted in Rev. Zool. 1841. p. 354.

5 The farmers would do well to change the name of this insect from turnip-fly to turnip-flea, since, from its diminutive size and activity in leaping, the latter name is much the most proper. The term, the fly, might with propriety be restricted to the Hop-aphis, and other species of the same genus; and this is the more desirable, because the hop is also subject to the attack of a Haltica, which the hop planters are judiciously beginning to distinguish by the name of the "flea."

as H. concinna, attack and devour them; so that, on account of their ravages, the land is often obliged to be resown, and frequently with no better success. It has been calculated by an eminent agriculturist, that from this cause alone the loss sustained in the turnip crops in Devonshire, in 1786, was not less than 100,000. Much damage is also sometimes occasioned by a little weevil (Nedyus contractus), which in the same manner pierces a hole in the cuticle. When the plant is more advanced, and out of danger from these pigmy foes, the black larvæ of a saw-fly (Athalia Centifolia), called by the farmers the "black" and "nigger" caterpillars, take their place, and occasionally do no little mischief, whole districts being sometimes nearly stripped by them; so that in 1782 and 1783, many thousand acres were on this account ploughed up: and in 1835, 1836, and 1837, the injury was not less extensive. The caterpillar of the cabbage-butterfly (Pontia Brassica), is also sometimes found upon the turnip in great numbers; and Sir Joseph Banks informs me that forty or fifty of the insects before mentioned, called by Mr. Walford the wireworm, but more probably, as there observed, the larvæ of one of the tribe of Brachyptera or rove-beetles, have been discovered in October just below the leaves in a single bulb of this plant.-The small knob or tubercle often observable on these roots is inhabited by a grub, which resembles one found in similar knobs on the roots of Sinapis arvensis (from which I have bred Nedyus contractus, and N. assimilis, small weevils nearly related to each other), and like it produces a small weevil, Ceutorhynchus sulcicollis. This, however, does not seem to affect their growth. Great mischief is occasionally done to the young plants by the wire-worm. I was shown a field. last summer in which they had destroyed one fourth of the crop, and the gentleman who showed them to me calculated that his loss by them would be 100%. One year he sowed a field thrice with turnips, which were twice wholly, and the third time in great part, cut off by this insect. The roots are also sometimes seriously injured by the caterpillars of the moth (Agrotis Segetum) before mentioned as destructive to wheat crops on the Continent. Whether the disease to which turnips are subject in some parts of the kingdom, from the form of the excrescences into which the

1 Young's Annals of Agriculture, vii. 102. For a full history of Haltica Nemorum, from the egg to its perfect state, see the very valuable paper of Henry Le Keux, Esq., in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London (ii. 24.), who, though no entomologist or agriculturist, has by his practical good sense and habits of patient and accurate observation, thrown more light on this previously obscure subject than all his predecessors.

2 Marshal in Philos. Trans. lxxiii. 1783. See Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. lxvi., ii. proc. lxxviii. and the admirable Prize Essay, containing a full history of this insect by G. Newport, Esq., 1838. See also the valuable papers on this insect, and on the turnip-flea, in Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. ii., by John Curtis, Esq.

3 Trans. Soc. Ent. Lond. ii. proc. xxx. A striking instance of the use of handpicking (in most cases by far the most effective mode of getting rid of insects) appeared in the West Briton, a provincial paper, in November, 1838, stating that Mr. G. Pearce of Pennare Goran had saved an acre and a half of turnips, sown to replace wheat destroyed by the wire-worm and attacked by hosts of these larvæ, by setting boys to collect them, who, at the rate of three half-pence per 100, gathered 18,000, as many as 50 having been taken from one turnip. Thus at an expense of only 11. 2s. 6d. an acre and a half of turnips, worth from 51. to 71. or more, was saved; while as the boys could each collect 600 per day, 30 days' employment was given, to them at 9d. per day, which they would not otherwise have had.

bulb shoots, called fingers and toes, be occasioned by insects, is not certainly known. Another root, the Beet, which has within the last twenty years been almost as extensively cultivated in France for the manufacture of sugar as turnips with us, is much injured by a small beetle, a new species of Cryptophagus described by M. Macquart (C. Beta), which devours the plants as soon as they appear above ground.2

We have wandered long enough about the fields to observe the progress of insect devastation: let us now return home to visit the domains of Flora and Pomona, that we may see whether their subjects are exposed to equal maltreatment. If we begin with the kitchen-garden, we shall find that its various productions, ministering so materially to our daily comfort and enjoyment, almost all suffer more or less from the attack of the animals we are considering. Thus, the earliest of our table dainties, radishes, are devoured by the maggot of a fly (Anthomyia Radicum), assisted by those of a very small beetle (Latridius porcatus), and our lettuces by the caterpillars of several species of moth; one of which is the beautiful tiger-moth (Euprepia Caja), another the pot-herb moth (Mamestra oleracea), a third anonymous, described by Reaumur, as beginning at the root, eating itself a mansion in the stem, and so destroying the plant before it cabbages. And when they are come to their perfection and appear fit for the table, their beauty and delicacy are often marred by the troublesome earwig, which, insinuating itself into them, defiles them with its excrements; while the seed is often nearly wholly destroyed (as was the case in Suffolk in 1836 and the three following years) by the grubs of a fly (Anthomyia Lactuca Bouché) which live in the involucre, and feed on the seeds and receptacle. What more acceptable vegetable in the spring than brocoli? Yet how dreadfully is its foliage often ravaged in the autumn by numerous hordes of the cabbage-butterfly; so that, in an extensive garden, you will sometimes see nothing left of the leaves except the veins and stalks.What more useful, again, than the cabbage? Besides the same insect, which injures them in a similar way, and a species of field-bug (Pentatoma ornata), which pierces the leaves like a sieve, in some countries they are infested by the caterpillar of a most destructive moth (Mamestra Brassica), to which I have before alluded; which, not content with the leaves, penetrates into the very heart of the plant. - One of the most delicate and

7

1 Spence's Observations on the Disease in Turnips called Fingers and Toes,, Hull, 1812, 8vo.

2 Ann. Sc. Nat. xxiii. 94. quoted by Westwood, Mod. Class. of Ins. i. 148.

3 Kyber in Germar's Mag. der Entom. i. 1.

4 Reaum. ii. 471.

5 Curtis in Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 363.

6 Köllar on Ins. inj. to Gardeners, &c. p. 148.

7 De Geer, ii. 440. In the summer of 1826, when at Brussels, I observed that delicious vegetable of the cabbage tribe so largely cultivated there under the name of Jets de choux, and which in England we call Brussels sprouts, to be materially injured in the later stages of its growth by the attacks of the turnip-flea, and other little beetles of the same genus (Haltica), which were so numerous and so universally prevalent, that I scarcely ever examined a full-grown plant from which a vast number might not have been collected. Some plants were almost black with them, the species most abundant being of a dark copper tinge. They had not merely eroded the cuticle in various parts, so as to give the leaves a brown blistered appearance, but had also eaten them into large holes, at the margin of which I often saw them in the act of gnawing; and the stunted and unhealthy appearance of the plants

admired of all table vegetables, concerning which gardeners are most apt to pride themselves, and bestow much pains to produce in perfection, I mean the cauliflower, is often attacked by a fly, which, ovipositing in that part of the stalk covered by the earth, the maggots, when hatched, occasion the plant to wither and die, or to produce a worthless head.1 Even when the head is good and handsome, if not carefully examined previous to being cooked, it is often rendered disgusting by earwigs that have crept into it, or the green caterpillar of Pontia Rape. In 1836, as we learn from Mr. Westwood, great injury was done in the market gardens to the west of London to the cauliflowers and other plants of the cabbage tribe by a species of aphis covered with a purple powder, which had not been before observed by the gardeners, who called it a new kind of blight.2

Our peas, beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and potatoes are attacked in the garden by the same enemies that injure them in the fields; I shall therefore dismiss them without further notice, and point out those which infest another of our most esteemed kinds of pulse, kidney beans. These are principally Aphides, which in dry seasons are extremely injurious to them. The fluid which they secrete, falling upon the leaves, causes them

sufficiently indicated the injurious effect of this interruption of the proper office of the sap. What was particularly remarkable, considering the locomotive powers of these insects, was that the young turnips, sown in August after the wheat and rye, close to acres of Brussels sprouts (which all round Brussels are planted in the open fields among other crops), infested by myriads of these insects, were not more eaten by them than they usually are in England, and produced good average crops. It would seem, agreeably to a fact which I shall mention in its place in speaking of the food of insects, that they prefer the taste of leaves to which they have been accustomed, to younger plants of the same natural family; and hence perhaps the previous sowing of a crop of cabbage-plants in the corner of a field meant for turnips, might allure and keep there the great bulk of these insects present in the vicinity, until the turnips were out of danger.

1 Perhaps this fly is the same which Linné confounded with Tachina Larvarum, which he says he had found in the roots of the cabbage (Syst. Nat. 992. 78.). I say "confounded," because it is not likely that the same species should be parasitic in an insect, and also inhabit a vegetable. It is obviously the same described by Köllar from Bouché under the name of Anthomyia Brassica (159.), which he states often destroys whole fields of cabbages by boring into the roots and stalks.

2 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. proc. xxi.

3 On examining some young garden peas and beans about four inches high, I observed the margins of the leaves to be gnawed into deep scollops by a little weevil (Sitona lineata), of which I found from two to eight on each pea and bean, and many in the act of eating. Not only were the larger leaves of every plant thus eroded, but in many cases the terminal young shoots and leaves were apparently irreparably injured. I have often noticed this and another of the short-snouted Curculios (S. tibialis) in great abundance in pea and bean fields, but was not aware till now that either of them was injurious to these plants. Probably both are so, but whether the crop is materially affected by them must be left to further inquiry. Garden beans still more than the field kinds, Mr. Curtis informs us, greatly suffered in 1841, from the holes which humble bees (Bombus terrestris and lucorum) made in the blossoms (as they usually do) to get out the honey contained in the nectary, which operation injuring the pods in their earliest state, four-fifths of them were destroyed, and produced no beans. (Curtis in Gardener's Chron. 1841, p. 485.) When at Shrewsbury in August 1839, I found almost every pod of the garden peas brought to market inhabited by a single yellowish-white lepidopterous larva, three or four lines long, which had eaten more or less of each pea, but which, though several assumed the pupa state and entered the earth in the box in which they were placed, never became perfect moths.

to turn black as if sprinkled with soot; and the nutriment being subtracted from the pods by their constant suction, they are prevented from coming to their proper size or perfection. The beans also which they contain are sometimes devoured by the caterpillar of a small moth.1- Onions, which add a relish to the poor man's crusts and cheese, and form so material an ingredient in the most savoury dishes of the rich, are also the favourite food of the maggot of a fly, that often does considerable damage to the crop.— From this maggot (for a supply of onions containing which I have to thank my friend Mr. Campbell, surgeon of Hedon, near Hull, where it is very injurious, particularly in light soils) I have succeeded in breeding the fly, which proves of that tribe of the Linnean genus Musca, now called Anthomyia. Being apparently undescribed, and new to my valued correspondent Count Hoffmansegg, to whom I sent it, I call it A. Ceparum.— The diuretic asparagus, towards the close of the season, is sometimes rendered unpalatable by the numerous eggs of the asparagus beetle (Crioceris Asparagi), and its larvæ feed upon the foliage after the heads branch out. -Cucumbers with us enjoy an immunity from insect assailants; but in America they are deprived of this privilege, an unascertained species, called there the cucumber fly, doing them great injury.—The plants of spinach are sometimes eaten bare by the blackish-brown caterpillars of the lovely little moth Glyphypteryx Rasella. - Horse-radish (as well as the cabbage tribe) is attacked by the larvæ of another moth, Mesographe forficalis.And to name no more, mushrooms, which are frequently cultivated and much in request, often swarm with the maggots of various Diptera and Coleoptera.

The insects just enumerated are partial in their attacks, confining themselves to one or two kinds of our pulse or other vegetables. But there are others that devour more indiscriminately the produce of our gardens ; and of these in certain seasons and countries we have no greater and more universal enemy than the caterpillar of a moth called by entomologists Plusia Gamma, from its having a character inscribed in gold on its primary wings, which resembles that Greek letter. This creature affords a pregnant instance of the power of Providence to let loose an animal to the work of destruction and punishment. Though common with us, it is seldom the cause of more than trivial injury; but in the year 1735 it was so incredibly multiplied in France as to infest the whole country. On the great roads, wherever you cast your eyes, you might see vast numbers traversing them in all directions to pass from field to field; but their ravages were particularly felt in the kitchen-gardens, where they devoured every thing, whether pulse or pot-herbs, so that nothing was left besides the stalks and veins of the leaves. The credulous multitude thought they were poisonous, report affirming that in some instances the eating of them had been followed by baneful effects. In consequence of this alarming idea, herbs were banished for several weeks from the soups of Paris. Fortunately these destroyers did not meddle with the corn, or famine would have followed in their train. Reaumur has proved that a single pair of these insects might in one season produce 80,000; so that were the friendly Ichneumons removed, to which the mercy of Heaven has given it

1 Reaum. ii. 479.

2 Barton in Philos. Magaz. ix. 62.
4 Ibid. p. 155.

3 Köllar's Ins. inj. to Gardeners, &c. p. 157.