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On the Harvest Bug. 

 {Trombidium Autwnnale.) 



By the late J. J. Wright, M.D., Edinburgh. 

 (Bead Sept. 24th, 1869.; 



In many country houses, at this season of the year, among the 

 many minor miseries of life, not the least is that caused by the 

 Harvest Bug. They are extremely partial in the distribution of 

 their attentions. Many people are never bitten by them, others 

 suffer a martyrdom from their attacks. As far as my own obser- 

 vations extend, females suffer more than males, which may arise 

 simply from the greater protection afforded by the dress of the 

 latter. The Harvest Bug is most abundant in autumn, and it 

 rarely appears before June or July. They are especially plentiful 

 on the leaves of the raspberry, the French bean, and in the stubble 

 fields. They seem to have most partiality for the chalk formations; 

 for example, they are abundant on the chalk formation of the 

 Yorkshire Wolds, but very rare on the low lands at the foot of the 

 hills. Gilbert White in his " Natural History of Selborne," tells 

 us, " The warreners are much infested by them on the chalky 

 Downs, where these insects swarm sometimes to so infinite a de- 

 gree as to discolour their nets, and to give them a reddish cast, 

 while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers." The 

 Harvest Bug is also said to attack the lower animals, such as sheep, 

 dogs, horses, and rabbits. 



VOL. II. 



B 



