40 On Vegetable Suhstajices groivhig on living Animals. 



excessive multiplication. There seems also to be another check 

 upon their inordinate increase. The fungous tribes of vege- 

 tables are in various instances the destroyers of the insect race. 

 Their germs or seeds, conveyed by the winds or otherwise to the 

 surface of these creatures, find them to be situations fit for their 

 adhesion. 



If it now may be considered as certain, continues t>Y Mitchill, 

 that a vegetable may grow upon the larva or chrysalis of a wasp, 

 and continue to increase until they change into the complete or 

 imago state, and after, why may not the like happen to the larva 

 and chrysalis of the Sphynx and Melolontha ? The presump- 

 tion is strong, that the seeds were scattered on the back and 

 sides of the larvae, exposed everywhere to their influence, and 

 not incased and protected like the young wasps. Whence it 

 might be inferred they would germinate and enlarge until after 

 the beginning of the fourth metamorphosis, when they would 

 probably overcome their supporter. 



Dr Maddiana, however, thinks, that, in some instances, the ve- 

 getation commences only after life has ceased. Dr Mitchill 

 continues to adduce instances of vegetable substances issuing from 

 the bodies of insects ; and in conclusion draws the following in- 

 ferences : 1. That this kind of vegetation is not confined to a 

 single species of insect, but obtains in several, viz. the Wasp, 

 Sphynx and Melolontha, there being also reason to suppose that 

 it extends to others : % That the bodies of insects nourish more 

 than one species of vegetable, as the Sphasria, Clavaria, and pro- 

 bably others not yet investigated : 3. That a part, at least, of 

 this order of parasitical vegetables, begin their work of annoy- 

 ance, like the larvae of the ichneumon, in the body of the living- 

 insect, and continue it until the creature is killed by its destruc- 

 tive inroads : 4. That these mixed associations of vegetable with 

 animal matter, are not prone to rapid putrefaction, but remain 

 long enough to be collected by naturalists, and become the ob- 

 jects of scientific inquiry. 



The chief or leading fact intended to be established, is the 

 derivation of nourishment by the vegetable from the living 

 animal, which the Doctor thinks may be rendered more admis- 

 sible, when we reflect that the bodies of dead animals support 

 vegetation, in the form of manure and otherwise, and that many 



