304 INSECTS AT HOME. 



The head of the insect is black, and so are the sides and 

 base of the thorax, while the rest of the body is bright yellow. 

 The wings are translucent, and along the upper edge is a 

 streak of black. The larva of this insect is grey-black, and 

 is therefore popularly called the Nigger. It is always to be 

 found in some localities where turnips are grown, but in certain 

 years it appears in vast numbers, and is one of the worst 

 plagues that a farmer can fear. Somewhere about July, the 

 parent insects appear by thousands, and make their way to the 

 turnip-fields, where they lay their eggs, using for the purpose 

 the saw-like ovipositor which has already been mentioned. 

 Mr. E. Newman has given great attention to these small 

 though terrible insects, and his description of them in the 

 ' Letters of Eusticus ' is so graphic that I cannot do better than 

 transfer it to these pages : — 



' These flies do not taste the turnips, but only come to them 

 on family business : they deposit their eggs on the under side 

 of the leaf, gluing them on the cuticle. In a very few days 

 they were hatched ; from the eggs had emerged the little 

 caterpillars. On August 9, these little creatures swarmed on 

 every leaf. I walked over field after field, and found them all 

 in the same state. On Mr. Moline's farm, at Old Pond, three 

 men were hoeing the turnips on a Saturday ; I showed them 

 the enemy, and told them that the turnips would be thin 

 enough by Monday, without any hoeing ; however, they were 

 farmer's men, and " knowed better." On Sunday I could not 

 get out 30 far as a turnip-field. On Monday I was again in the 

 field at Old Pond, and the turnips were not. Since my last 

 visit they had been swept from the face of the earth. The 

 laud was everywhere as bare as on the day it had been sowed. 

 There was no speck of green for the eye to rest on. It was a 

 wild and universal desolation ; and tlie black, crawling vermin 

 that had caused the ruin were clustered in bunches on the 

 ground, or lingering about the skeletons of the turnip-leaves. 

 No plague of Egypt could have been more effective ; the mis- 

 chief was complete. Some fields received the blast a few days 

 later than others, but all had it ; not one escaped, unless the 

 crop were swedes, and it is remarkable that these were un- 

 touched. 



' I will now give a somewhat more particular history of this 



