INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 203 



tlescription, imported about thirty years ago from the 

 Mauritius, or else with the Constantia vine from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, has destroyed nearly nine-tenths 

 of the peach-trees in the Island of St. Helena, where 

 formerly they were so abundant, that, as in North Ame- 

 rica, the swine were fed with them. Various means 

 have been employed to destroy this plague, but hitherto 

 without success ^. — The imperial pine-apple, the glory 

 of our stoves, and the most esteemed of the gifts of Po- 

 mona, cannot, however precious, be defended from the 

 injuries of a singular species of mite, the red Spider^ of 

 gardeners, [Erythrceiis telarius) which covers them, and 

 other stove plants, with a most delicate but at the same 

 time very pernicious web. — The olive-tree, so valuable 

 to the inhabitants of the v/armer regions of Europe, often 

 nourishes in its berries the destructive maggot of a fly 

 [Oscinis OIcce); and the caterpillar of a little moth 

 {Tinea Oleclla), which preys upon the kernel of the 

 nucleus, occasions them to fall before they are ripe. — 

 Every one who eats nuts knows that they are very often 

 inhabited by a small white grub ; this is the offspring of 

 a weevil [Balaninus Nucum) remarkable for its long and 

 slender rostrum, with which it perforates the shell when 

 young and soft, and deposits an egg in the orifice.— 

 In France it sometimes happens, when the chesnuts pro- 

 mise an abundant crop, that the fruit falls before it comes 

 to maturity, scarcely any remaining upon the trees. The 



could never succeed with tlie nectarine, the fruit constantly falling 

 off perforated by the grub of some insect. 



* Descr. of the I. of St. Helena, 147. 



^ A mode of destroying this hurtful insect is given in a Number 

 of that usei'ul and interesting work, the Gardcncr''s Magazine, just 

 quoted. 



