IxVDlRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 175 



of the produce of this grain, Lrinne affirms, is annually 

 destroyed in Sweden by another fiy, not yet discovered 

 in Britain, {Musca Frit, L.,) which does the mischief 

 by getting- into the ear. — A small species of moth de- 

 scribed hy Reaumur, though not named by Linne, 

 which may be called Tinea Ilordei, devours the grain 

 when laid up in the granary. This fly deposits seve- 

 ral eggs, perhaps twenty or thirty, on a single grain ; 

 but as one grain only is to be the portion of one larva, 

 they disperse when hatched, each selecting one for 

 itself, which it enters from without at a place more 

 tender than the rest ; — and this single gi-ain furnishes 

 a sufficient supply of food to support the caterpillar till 

 it is ready to assume the pupa. Concealed within this 

 contracted habitation, the little animal does nothing 

 that may betray it to the watchful eye of man, not even 

 ejecting its excrements from its habitation ; so that 

 there maybe millions within a heap of corn, where you 

 would not suspect there was one '^. 



I have not observed that oats suffer from insects, ex- 

 cept from the universal subterranean destroyer of the 

 grasses, the wire-worm, of which I shall give you a 

 more full account hereafter ; and occasionally from an 

 Aphis. The only important grain that now remains 

 unnoticed is the maize or Indian corn. Besides the 

 chintz- bug-fly, a little beetle (Phakria cormita, Latr.) 

 appears to devour it ; and it has probably other unre- 

 corded enemies''. Th6 Guinea corn of America {Hoi- 

 cus bicohr), as well as other kinds of grain, is, accord- 

 ing to Abbott, often much injured by the larva of a 



'^ Act. Stockh. 1750. 128. Reaumur, ii. 480, &c, 



•■ Thb insect was taken in maize by Mr. i^parshall of Norwich. 



