182 THE TEREBRANTIA. 



denominated Terebrantia from this character. All 

 these insects are also remarkable from their possess- 

 ing the power of executing leaps of considerable 

 extent in comparison with their size^ by the agency 

 of their abdomen,, which they bend under them, and 

 suddenly extend. A second species, the Sericothrips 

 Staphylinus, measuring only a twenty-fourth of an 

 inch in length, which may be found in company with 

 Thrips Ulicis in the flowers of the furze, is exceed- 

 ingly active in this way, leaping three or four times 

 in succession in its vain endeavours to escape from 

 the disagreeable confinement of a pill-box. 



Most of the insects of this tribe are found, like the 

 Thrips Ulicis, upon or in flowers, on the delicate 

 juices of which they appear to feed. A few species 

 also frequent the leaves of plants, and the collector of 

 Coleoptera may often observe them running about 

 in his net as fast as their little legs can carry them, 

 but their minute size appears hitherto to have damped 

 the ardour of entomologists, and they are usually 

 dismissed with a want of ceremony less complimentary 

 to their importance than satisfactory to their feelings. 

 Some species are occasionally injurious to cultivated 

 plants when they make their appearance in great 

 numbers; for example, the Limothrips cerealium, a 

 small brownish species which infests the flowers of 

 the wheat, is said to have destroyed a third of the 

 wheat crop in Piedmont in the year 1805. Accord- 

 ing to an Italian writer, Vassali-Eandi, this insect 

 also attacks the stems of the wheat-plants, gnawing 

 them above the knots, and thus causing a more 

 wholesale destruction than could be effected were it 

 to confine its attention to the individual flowers. Of 

 the species which prefer the leaves of plants, a few 



