INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED IJY INSECTS. 229 



illusiis) if butchers do not protect their shambles, will 

 carry off no inconsiderable portion of their meat. A 

 small cock-roach [Blatta lapponica) which I have taken 

 upon our eastern coast, swarms in the huts of the Lap- 

 landers, and will sometimes annihilate in a single day, 

 a work in which a carrion-beetle [Sil-pha lapponica) 

 joins, their whole stock of dried fish ". The quantity of 

 sugar that flies and wasps will devour, if they can come 

 at it, especially the latter, the diminutive size of the crea- 

 tures considered, is astonishing: — in one year long ago, 

 when sugar was much cheaper than it is now, a trades- 

 man told me he calculated his loss, by the wasps alone, 

 at twenty pounds. A singular spectacle is exhibited in 

 India (so Captain Green relates) by a small red ant with 

 a black head. They march in long files, about three 

 abreast, to any place where sugar is kept ; and when they 

 are saturated, I'eturn in the same order, but by a diffe- 

 rent route. If the sugar, upon which they are busy, be 

 carried into the sun, they immediately desert it. What 

 is very extraordinary, these ants are also fond of oil. 

 Sweetmeats and preserves are very subject to be attacked 

 by a minute oblong transparent mite with very short legs 

 and without any hair upon its body. Our butter and 

 lard are stated to be eaten by the caterpillar of a moth 

 {Aglossa pmguznalis). TyropJiaga^ Casei, the parent fly 

 of the jumping cheese-maggot, loses no opportunity, 

 we know, of laying its eggs in our fresh cheeses, and 

 when they get dry and old the mite {Acarns Siro) settles 



Amcen. Acad. iii. 345. 

 •^ This name has long been given to this insect, and the Charac- 

 ters of the genus were drawn by Mr. Curtis before tlic publication 

 of Meigen's fifth volume (in which the genus is called riophild) ; it is 

 therefore retained. Sec Curtis Bril. Enl. f. 1 '-*(). 



