INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 197 



same order, Dermesies tomentosus., which I once saw 

 prove fatal to a whole crop ; and bees frequently anti- 

 cipate us, and by sucking the fruit with their proboscis 

 spoil it for the table. — Gooseberries and currants, those 

 agreeable and useful fruits, a common object of culti- 

 vation both to poor and rich, have their share of ene- 

 mies in this class» The all-attacking Aphides do not 

 pass over them, and the former especially are some- 

 times greatly injured by them ; their excrement falling 

 upon the berries renders them clammy and disgusting, 

 and they soon turn quite black from it. In July 1812 1 

 saw a currant-bush miserably ravaged by a species of 

 Coccus, very much resembling the Coccus of the vine. 

 The eggs were of a beautiful pink, and enveloped in a 

 large mass of cotton-like web, which could be drawn 

 out to a considerable length. Sir Joseph Banks lately 

 showed me a branch of the same shrub perforated down 

 to the pith by the caterpillar of Sesia tipulijbrmis, F. : 

 the diminished size of the fruit points out, he observes, 

 where this enemy has been at work. In Germany, 

 where perhaps this insect is more numerous, it is said 

 to destroy not seldom the larger bushes of the red cur- 

 rant*. The foliage of these fruits often suffers much 

 from the black and white caterpillar o^ Phalcena gros- 

 sulariata, L. ; (this was the case last spring at Hull ;) 

 but their worst and most destructive enemy, particularly 

 of the gooseberry, is that of a small saw-fly. This larva 

 is of a green colour, shagreened as it were with minute 

 black tubercles, which it loses at its last moult. The fly 

 attaches its eggs in rows to the underside of the leaves. 

 When first liatched, the little animals feed in society ; 



^ Wiener Verzdch. 8to. 29. 



