S2 Dr Mitchili on the Growth of Vegetables 



Being fixed there, it would increase with the enlargement of 

 the animal ; and drawing nourishment from its body, would 

 eontinue to grow, even after it had attained its last and per- 

 fect state, until the Spltceria destroyed the life of the wasp. 



" If the declaration that a vegetable of any sort could take 

 a root, or sustain itself upon a living animal, rested upon a 

 solitary occurrence, it might be suspected there was a mistake 

 in the matter. But, in the present instance, there is no room 

 left for such an objection, inasmuch as the vegetating wasps 

 collected on the spot, and carried away in complete preserva- 

 tion, put the fact beyond all doubt, that, under particular cir- 

 cumstances, the body of an insect, while yet alive, becomes 

 the soil or base upon which vegetables fasten themselves, and 

 from which they derive support. 



*' Three occurrences in this country deserve to be mention- 

 ed. Stephen W. Williams, in a letter to me, dated Deerfield, 

 Mass. March 29, 1824, describes a remarkable production of 

 the kind. He states, on the authority of several most respec- 

 table citizens, that they have repeatedly seen a vegetable grow- 

 ing from the body of the common grub, {melolontha ?) They 

 have observed them so many times, and in so many places, 

 rising to the height of several inches, that some of the wit- 

 nesses were inclined to believe the product was the tall black- 

 berry, (Ruhtis villostis.) The grub he means is found in 

 wood-yards, around the stumps of dead trees, and often in 

 sward-ground ; in which latter it has been known to do ex- 

 tensive damage, by devouring the roots of grass, and some- 

 times every plant in its way. In 1822, these devastators not 

 only killed the herbage of large tracts, but also preyed upon 

 the maize and potatoes. 



*' Addison Phillco, M. D. has sent me several specimens of 

 larvae or grubs bearing plants, though there was no more than 

 a single vegetable on one animal. In his letter, dated at 

 Sangamon, Illinois, May 4, 1826, he writes that his neighbour, 

 Capt. Hathaway, ploughed up a number of them in some old 

 ground where turnips had been raised the preceding fall. The 

 excrescences were invariably near the head of the creature, and 

 in some instances sprouted into three divisions like leaves." 



From these facts Dr Mitchili draws the following inferen- 



11 



