38 VEGETABLE PARASITES. 



non of a vegetable living entirely on air. There are also vege- 

 table parasites (such as the dodder, &c.) which are supported 

 solely at the expense of other plants. But who would expect 

 to find in a vegetable an appropriates of animal food, and that 

 from an insect subject ? Yet such would seem to be the case 

 with several Cryptogamous, or mushroom-like plants, which 

 have been found growing, in Guadaloupe, on wasps,* also upon 

 hawk-moths and chafers. t These vegetable parasites begin, 

 it is said, their destructive operations on the bodies of the 

 living animals, and continue them, like the grubs of ichneu- 

 mons, till their victims' death. 



In our own country, bees and humble-bees are supposed, 

 sometimes, to have a species of niucor, or other fungi, growing 

 on them, though it is thought, by some, that the adhering 

 stamina of flowers may have been mistaken for such parasitic 

 sprouts. By Mr. Kirby these vegetable parasites are consi- 

 dered to arise from moisture, which, accumulating on the in- 

 sect while in a state of torpidity, may afford thus a bed or 

 seed-plot for these mushroom- like excrescences of a diseased 

 nature. 



We began our sketch of parasitic insects by pointing to 

 their moral analogy with parasitic vices; and now, having 

 traced, though slightly, the round of their vampyre-like pro- 

 ceedings, w r e will only take notice of one other resembling fea- 

 ture, thereby suggested, which will serve, at least, to make 

 * By M. Ricard. f By Dr. Mitchell. 



