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not altogether grateful to tlie optics or olfactories, but decidedly be- 

 neficial to the fruit crops, not that the fruit thrive on smoke, but that 

 the enemies of fruit abominate it. In many of my neighbours' gardens 

 the goosebeny -bushes are all but dead : the old stems are naked as 

 in winter, and the shoots of the year so withered, shrunk and lithesome 

 that you might tie them in knots without breaking them : and then 

 the poor gooseberries are shrivelled into disgusting abortions, after 

 making a futile attempt to redden into ripeness. 



Now the history of the pest is on this wise. Unconnected with its 

 object, that of giving birth to one of the greatest nuisances that 

 ever afflicted a fruit-garden, the parent fly is a pleasing and good- 

 looking insect, and is rather a favourite with gardeners, who think it 

 the harmless harbinger of the cloudless skies which accompany its 

 visit. I have often watched these flies glancing in the sunshine, 

 chasing each other over the leaves, spreading out their gauzy and 

 glassy wings, the hind wings projecting from beneath the fore wings 

 like those of the lappet-moth, and enjoying to the top of their 

 bent the genial influence of that delicious mock summer which we al- 

 ways have before the chill eastern blasts which usher in the real one, 

 and which are supposed to bring the grub into existence. I will de- 

 scribe the fly : the wings are four, perfectly transparent, and in bright 

 sunshine reflect the tints of the rainbow : the head and antennae are 

 nearly black : the thorax is yellow with a large 

 black spot above and below, the upper spot is 

 generally divided into three : the body is of a C^j^ 

 clear, delicate, unspotted yellow : the legs are 

 yellow and the feet black. I send you drawings 

 of the fly, the leaves and the grub, which, if 

 you copy faithfully on wood, will greatly add to 

 the interest of this history. The fly is magni- 

 fied, the leaves and grubs are of the natural size. The life of the fly 

 is but another example of implicit obedience to nature's universal law, 

 the heaven-descended command " increase and multiply." 



Very shortly after the due celebration of the nuptials the female re- 

 pairs to the under side of a leaf and standing directly over its mid- 

 rib, her back downwards, her wings closely folded, and her antenna 

 stretched straight out and continually shivering, she bends her saw 

 under her so as to give her body a curve, and deposits her first egg on 

 the rib itself; then a second, a third, and so on to the tip of the leaf, or 

 as near the tip as she can find convenient standing room. She then goes 

 to one of the side ribs, then to another, and so on til^all the principal 



