178 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Great profits are sometimes derived by farmers from 

 their crops of^ clover-seed : but this does not happen very 

 often; for a small weevil, [Apion Jlavifemoratum,) which 

 abounds every where at almost all times of the year, feeds 

 upon the seed of the purple clover, and in most seasons 

 does the crop considerable damage ; so that a plant of the 

 fairest appearance will, in consequence of the voracity of 

 this little enemy, produce scarcely any thing. Another 

 species [Apion Jlavipcs) infests the Dutch or white clover*. 

 The young plants of purple clover, when just sprung, 

 are often, as Mr. Joseph Stickney pointed out to me, 

 much injured by the same little jumping beetles [Haltica) 

 that attack the turnips. 



But not only, if let loose to the work of destruction, 

 might insects annihilate our grain and pulse ; they would 

 also deprive the earth of that beautiful green carpet which 

 now covers it, and is so agreeable and so refreshing to 

 the sight. When you see a large tract of land lying 

 falloAv, as is sometimes the case in open districts, with no 

 intervening patches of verdure, how unpleasant and un- 

 comfortable is it to your eye ! What then would be your 

 sensations, were the whole face of the earth bare, and 

 not dressed by Flora ? But such a state of things would 

 soon take place, if to punish us, or to teach us thankful- 

 ness to the great Arbiter of our fate, the insects that feed 

 upon the grass of our pastures were to become as gene- 

 rally numerous as they are occasionally permitted to do. 

 One of the worst of these ravacrers is the grub of the 

 common cock-chafer {Melolontha vulgaris.) ^ This insect, 



" Marl? wick, Marshatn and Lehmanu in Linn. Trans, vi. 142 — . 

 and Kirby in ditto, ix. 37. 42. n. 19. 23. 

 "Plate XVII. Fig. 12. 



