100 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Here also may be included the larva of the long-legged gnat {Tipiila 

 o/eracea), known in many parts by the name of /ke grub, which is some- 

 times very prejudicial to the grass in marshy lands, and at others not less 

 so to corn. Reaumur informs us that in Poitou, in certain years, the grass 

 of whole districts has been so destroyed by it, as not to produce the. 

 food necessary for the sustenance of the cattle.^ In many parts of Eng- 

 land, in Holdcrness particularlj', it cuts off a large proportion of the wheat 

 crops, especially if sown upon clover-hiys.'^ Reaunuu- concludes from the 

 observations he made that it lives solely upon earth, and consequently that 

 the injury M'hich it occasions arises from its loosening the roots of corn 

 and grass by burrowing amongst them : but my friend Mr. Stickney, the 

 intelligent author of a treatise upon this insect, is inclined to think from 

 his experiments that it feeds on the roots themselves. However this may 

 be, the evil produced is evident ; and it appears too from the observations 

 of the gentleman last mentioned, that this animal is not killed by lime 

 applied in nuicli larger doses than usual. ^ 



Our national beverage, ale, so valuable and heartening to the lower 

 orders, and so infinitely preferable to ardent spirits, is indebted to another 

 vegetable, the hop, for its agreeable conservative bitter. This plant, so 

 precious, has numerous enemies in the Lilliputian world to which I am 

 introducing you. Its roots are subject to the attack of the caterpillar of a 

 singular species of moth {Hcpialus Hinnn/i), known to collectors b}' the 

 name of the ghost, that sometimes does them considerable injury.* — 

 A small beetle, also (Ha/dca concinna) is particularly destructive to the 

 tender shoots early in the year ; and upon the presence or absence of 

 Ajyhklcs, known by the name of the^j/, as in the case of peas, the crop of 

 every year depends ; so that the hop-grower is wholly at the mercy of 

 insects. They are the barometer that indicates the rise and fall of his 

 wealth, as well as of a very important branch of the revenue, the difference 

 in the amount of the duty on hops being often as much as 200,000/. per 

 annum, more or less in proportion as the^j/ prevails or the contrary.^ 



ting two alternately, till tlie whole field of eight acres was gone over. On tlie fol- 

 lowing morning he employed two women to examine and free from the .slugs, wliich 

 they did into a mea.sure, the tops and slices ; and when cle.ired, tliej' were laid upon 

 those stetches that had been omitted the day before. It was ol)served invariablj^ 

 that in the stetches dressed with the turnips no slugs were to be found upon the 

 wheat or crawling upon the land, though they abounded upon the turnips ; while on 

 the undressed stetches thej' were to be seen in great numbers both on the wheat and 

 on the land. The quantity of slugs thus collected was near a bushel. — Mr. Kodwell 

 is persuaded that by this plan he saved his Avheat from essential injury. 



1 Reaum. v. H. 



2 Two species are confounded under the appellation of the grub, the larvae namely 

 of Tipula nieracea and cornicina, which last is very injurious, though not equally with 

 the tirst. In the rich district of Sunk Island in Uolderness, in the spring of 18i3, 

 hundreds of acres of pasture were entireh- destroyed by them, being rendered as 

 completely bro'wn as if they had suffered a three months' drought, and destitute of 

 all vegetation except that of a few thistles. A square foot of the dead turf being 

 dug up, 210 grubs were counted in it! and what furnishes a striking proof of the 

 prolific powers of these insects, the next year it was difiicult to liud a single one. 



2 Sticknev's Observations on the Grub. 

 4 De Geer, i. 4S7. 



s It would not be difficult to show that nearly the whole of th;s large sum, and their 

 own still greater losses, are thrown away by the hop planters from their ignorance 



