against the Ravages of Insects, 427 



tical modes of examination, and who unite the entomological 

 knowledge requisite to trace most effectually their habits, with 

 a perfect and scientific knowledge of the true principles of 

 agriculture. 



Thus, it seems undoubted, that this want of sufficient op- 

 portunity for investigation has hitherto proved one of the 

 greatest barriers to our proposing satisfactory remedies against 

 the ravages of insects ; and knowing, as we too well know, 

 that the study and investigation of these objects have hitherto 

 been almost totally uncultivated, it is not perhaps to be won- 

 dered at, that so little has been done. The observer of insects 

 has proposed remedies which the agriculturist cannot adopt ; 

 and the agriculturist, on the other hand, ignorant of the nature 

 of insects, has pursued the very plan which has been the most 

 congenial to the habits of the insects which he wished to de- 

 stroy : as in the case of the French gardener, recorded by 

 Reaumur, who, thinking to destroy the caterpillars of the 

 cabbage moth, buried them just at the time when they were 

 themselves on the point of going into the earth to change to 

 chrysalides. 



The study of insects is, however, beginning at length to 

 emerge from that contempt with which it has been so long 

 regarded ; and I trust that the labours of the members of the 

 Entomological Society will show that practical utility has not 

 been lost sight of in their discussions. 



It is owing to this more extended observation of insects, 

 that we now find gentlemen, possessing great agricultural 

 knowledge, applying themselves to the investigation of noxious 

 insects ; aiid no one appears to have entered more fully into 

 this united species of enquiry, or to have obtained more de- 

 cided success, than the gentleman whose communications, in 

 various works [especially in the Entomological Magazine, 

 vol. i.], are pubhshed with the name of Uusticus of Godal- 

 ming ; although, perhaps, there is a shade too litde of the 

 entomologist in his writings. 



In one of the papers of this gentleman, published in the 

 Entomological Magazine [i. 363 — 367.], upon the turnip fly, 

 an apparently successful remedy has been proposed against 

 its attacks, by steeping the seeds, upon which it is supposed 

 that the eggs of the insect have been deposited, in brine. 



The object of the present communication is to suggest the 

 application of a similar remedy for the prevention of the 

 ravages of a scarcely less destructive insect, the onion fly. 



On examining a bed of onions in the month of May, almost 

 as soon as the plants are out of the ground, some of them will 

 occasionally be observed to be in a drooping state ; these soon 



