RAVAGES OF GRASS- AND TREE- HOPPERS. 7 



Here let us stop and compare, as applied to both our revellers of 

 the summer, the dictum of poet and the evidence of naturalist. 



First for judgment on the tree-hopper. The insect of 

 Anacreon might and may possibly be of more innoxious cha- 

 racter ; but we are told by Stoll, that the common species of 

 Tettlx or Cicada, what he calls " La Cic/ale Yieilleuse" does 

 infinite injury to trees, especially to plantations of coffee,* by 

 boring grooves and holes in the smaller branches, both for the 

 deposition of eggs and for extracting juices. 



Now, Mr. Grasshopper! Are % "joy" and "luxury" 

 the joy and luxury of perfect innocence ? On ocular evi- 

 dence dost thou stand condemned. Each notch in the verdant, 

 much more the withering blade, is as a mouth opened against 

 thee in mute accusation. True, we hear and read but little of 

 thy misdemeanors, while those of " the fly/ ; t and " the wire- 

 worm/' J and "the gmb," are trumpeted loudly forth, and 

 figure infamously in the ' Newgate Calendar ' of the indig- 

 nant farmer. Yet do we suspect, that where thou and thy 

 merry companions most abound, even in the meads of England, 

 the mouthfulls of the cow must lack moisture, and the crops 

 of hay lack weight ; and when we read of thy continental fel- 

 lows caught in hand-nets by the bushel, what must we think 

 of the amount of mischief committed, or likely to have been 

 wrought, by the combination of their jaws ! But, however 



* At Surinam. t Aphides of the hop, so called. 



J Larva of the Click Beetle. Larva of the Cockchafer, 



