190 I.VDIRi:C'T INJtJRIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



into which the bulb shoots, caWedJlngers and toes, be 

 occasioned by insects, is not certainly known*. 



We have wandered long enough about the fields to 

 observe the progress of insect devastation ; let us now 

 return home to visit the domains of Flora and Pomona, 

 that we may see whether their subjects are exposed to 

 equal maltreatment. If we begin with the kitchen-garden, 

 we shall find that its various productions, ministering- 

 so materially to our daily comfort and enjoyment, al- 

 most all suffer more or less from the attack of the ani- 

 mals we are considering. — Thus, the earliest of our ta- 

 ble dainties, radishes, are devoured by the maggot of 

 a fly, {Musca Radicumy L.) and our lettuces by the ca- 

 terpillars of several species of moth ; one of which is 

 the beautiful tiger-moth (Bombj/x Caja, F.), another 

 the pot-herb-moth (JVoctua olcracea, F.), a third ano- 

 nymous, described by Reaumur as beginning at the root, 

 eating itself a mansion in the stem, and so destroying the 

 plant before it cabbages^. — And when they are come to 

 their perfection and appear lit for the table, their beauty 

 and delicacy are often marred by the troublesome ear- 

 wig, which, insinuating itself into them, defiles them 

 w ith its excrements. — What more acceptable vegetable 

 in the spring than brocoli? Yet how dreadfully is its 

 foliage often ravaged in the autumn by numerous hordes 

 of the cabbage-butterfly! so that, in an extensive gar- 

 den, you will sometimes see nothing left of the leaves 

 except the veins and stalks. — What more useful, again. 



^ ?;[>rn( c> Ohservations on the. Disenxe in Turnips called Fingers and Tea 

 IIulllS12. 8vc). * Rcaiim.it. 47!. 



