INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 149 



granate, in the East Indies, has its interior eaten by the caterpillar of the 

 hair-streak butterfly (Thecla Isocrates), o{ whose economy Mr. Westvvood 

 has given so interesting an account.^ 



In these last-named fruits, however, we have a far slighter interest than 

 in another of our imported ones, the orange, of which, in 1841 (including 

 lemons), we consumed upwards of 302,000 chests, paying a gross duty 

 of 63,975/., and which may be regarded as the most valuable of the 

 whole, combining a highly intrinsic excellence, with a price which brings 

 it within the reach of all. It appears, however, from the interesting and 

 important facts stated by W. S. MacLeay, Esq. that we might have 

 oranges still cheaper, were it not for a little fly (^Ceratitis citriperdd), 

 which lays its eggs in them before their shipment from the Azores, and 

 the grubs subsequently disclosed often so greatly injure them, that the 

 orange merchants calculate on losing one third of their average importa- 

 tions, and of course reimburse themselves by a proportionate advance of 

 the price to the consumers.^ 



One of the most delicious, and at the same time most useful, of all our 

 fruits is the grape ; to this, as you know, we are indebted for our raisins, 

 for our currants, for our wine, and for our brandy ; you cannot therefore 

 but feel interested in its history, and desire to be informed, whether, like 

 those before enumerated, this choice gift of Heaven, whose produce 

 *' cheeretb God and man^," must also be the prey of insects. There is 

 a singular beetle, coinmon in Hungary {Lethrus cephalotes), which gnaws 

 off the young shoots of the vine, and drags them backward into its bur- 

 row, where it feeds upon them : on this account the country people wage 

 continual war with it, destroying vast numbers.'* Five other beetles also 

 attack this noble plant: three of them, mentioned by French authors, 

 (^Rhynchites, Bacchus, Eumolpus vitis, and Haltica oleracea), devour the 

 young shoots, the foliage and the footstalks of the fruit, so that the latter 

 is prevented from coming to maturity^; a fourth (C. corruptor Host,) by 

 a German, which seems closely allied to Otiorhynchus notatus, before 

 mentioned, if it be not the same insect, which destroys the young vines, 

 often killing them the first year, and is accounted so terrible an enemy to 

 them, that not only the animals, but even their eggs, are searched for and 

 destroyed, and to forward this work people often call in the assistance of 

 their neighbors.^ And a fifth, Otiorhynchus sulcatus, also occasionally 

 does considerable injury to the vine in this country, by gnawing off" the 

 young shoots.^ Various lepidopterous larvae are still more injurious to the 

 vine. In the Crimea the small caterpillar of a Procris or Ino (genera 

 separated from Sphinx L.), related to /. statices, is a most destructive 



1 Christy, in Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. ii. 1. 



* Zoological Journ. iv. 475. This fly, which Dr. Heineken states is common in Madeira, 

 and that he has also hatched it from lemons and peaches (Zool. Journ. v. 199.)) seems lo be 

 the same species with Petalophora {Trypeta Wied.), capitata Macq. {Dipteres, ii. 454.), so 

 named from the two singular clavate processes between the eyes of the male. It may be 

 easily obtained from decaying oranges, on the outside of which the grub assumes the pupa 

 state. 



3 That is, "High and Low," Judges, ix. 13. * Sturm, Deutschlatid's Fauna, i. 5. 



6 Lalreille, Hist. Nat. xi. 66. 331.— According to KoUar (163.), however, in Austria, il 

 is R. betukti., and not R. Bacchus, which is injurious to the vines ; and the case is the same 

 according to M. Siibermann, as to the vines of Alsatia and the banks of the Rhine. 



• Host in Jacquin. Collect, iii. 297. 



' Westwood ia Loudon's Gardener's Mag. for April, 1837. 



13* 



