LETTER VI. 



INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



INDIRECT INJURIES CONTINUED. 



JriAViNG endeavoured to give you some idea of the 

 mode in vt'hich insects establish and maintain their em- 

 pire over man and his train of dependent animals, I 

 shall next call your attention to his living vegetable 

 possessions, whether the produce of the forest, the field, 

 or the garden ; whether necessary to him for his sup- 

 port, convenient for his use, or ministering to his com- 

 fort, pleasure and delight : — and here you will find these 

 little creatures as busily engaged in the work of mis- 

 chief as ever, destroying what is necessary, deranging 

 what is convenient, marring what is beautiful, and turn- 

 ing what should give us pleasure into an object of dis- 

 gust. 



Let us begin with the produce o^ our fields. — Bread 

 is called " the staff of life :" yet should Divine Provi- 

 dence in anger be pleased to give the rein to the various 

 insects which, in the different stages of its growth, at- 

 tack the plant producing it, how quickly would this staff 

 be broken ! From the moment that wheat begins to 

 emerge from the soil, to the time when it is carried into 

 the barn, it is exposed to their ravages. One of its ear- 

 liest assailants in this country is that of which Mr. Wal- 

 ford has given an account in the Linnean Transactions, 

 taking it for the wire-worm ; but, as Mr. Marsham ob^ 



