204 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



same tribe with the above, that feeds upon its kernel, 

 is armed with jaws sufficiently strong to perforate it, 

 that it may make its escape when the time of its change 

 is arrived, and assume the pupa between the stone and 

 the flesh. The date is eaten also by a beetle which 

 Hasselquist calls a Dermesfes^. 



One of the most delicious, and at the same time most 

 useful, of all our fruits is the grape : to this, as you know, 

 we are indebted for our raisins, for our currants, for our 

 wine, and for our brandy ; you cannot therefore but 

 feel interested in its history, and desire to be informed, 

 whether, like those before enumerated, this choice gift 

 of heaven, whose produce "cheereth God and man''," 

 must also be the prey of insects. There is a singular 

 beetle, common in Ilungaryj (Lethrifs cephalotes, F.) 

 which gnaws off the young shoots of the vine, and drags 

 them backward into its burrow, where it feeds upon 

 them : on this account the country people wage conti- 

 nual war with it, destroying vast numbers'^. — Three 

 other beetles also attack this noble plant : two of them, 

 mentioned by French authors, {Ri/nchites Bacchus smd 

 Eiimolpus Viiis,) devour the young shoots, the foliage,, 

 and the footstalks of the fruit, so that the latter is pre- 

 vented from coming to maturity''; and a third (C Cor- 

 rupfor, Host,) by a German, which seems closely allied 

 to Curculio Vastaior, E. B., (C. picipes, F.) if it be not 

 the same insect. This destroys the young vines, often 

 killing them the first year; and is accounted so terrible 

 an enemy to them, that not only the animals but even 



" Reaiim. ii. 507. and Hasselquist's Travels in the Levant, 428. 



•• That is " High and Low." Judges ix. 13, 



•" Sturm Dculschland''s Fauna, i. 3. " Latrcille, Hist. Nat. xi. 66-. 331. 



