Observations on the Pea Fly, ^c. 319 



maggot in every one, the morbid speck sufficiently betrays 

 it, though yet so small, as scarcely discemable with the 

 assistance of a microscope, and perhaps whilst the peas 

 are very young, do not lessen their native peculiar de- 

 licious taste; but when they are full grown, the latent 

 evil becomes too appai'cnt, and when quite ripe, there 

 is little more than the fair superficial appearance of a 

 pea, a mere shell enveloping a fat chrj^salis. 



I can suggest no method of destroying this voracious 

 insect, unless the planters who suffer by their ravages, 

 would consent to consume in the autumn, of one and 

 the same year, all their peas when dry ripe, by feed- 

 ing them off to their cattle, and import a new stock 

 of seed from Europe. The method would, if not 

 exterminate them, at least diminish their numbers, 

 for in the autumn there is not one alive but the young 

 rising generation, in the bowels of the peas which 

 would individually be cut off by this process. 



I believe these insects, since the importation and culti- 

 vation of the green pea from Europe, have avoided 

 every other kind of vegetable and confined themselves 

 entirely to tliis, on account of its superior delicacy. — 

 They do not meddle with any of our native pulses, that 

 I have observed ; such as the caravances, dolichos, pha- 

 seoli, lupini, vicia, Sec. yet there is in Carolina, a smal- 

 ler yellowish species of this insect, which is, if possible, 

 more numerous and voracious; they are destructive 

 to all kinds of esculent legumes, particularly so to all 

 species of cai'avances, and these, in the manner of the 

 common little black wevel, lay their knits on the dry peas, 

 which hatch and propagate continually, the year round, 

 and devour perpetually while there is a pea remaining 



