NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 101 



in the bacon while it is drying ; these eggs produce maggots called 

 jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the 

 hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great waste. This fly I 

 suspect to be a variety of the muscapntris of Linnaeus ; it is to be 

 seen in the summer in farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about 

 the mantel-pieces, and on the ceilings. 



The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden 

 (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an 

 animal that wants to be better known. The country people here 

 call it the turnip- fly and black-dolphin ; but I know it to be one 

 of the coleoptera ; the " chrysomela oleracea, sanatoria, femoribus 

 posticis crassissimis." In very hot summers they abound to an 

 amazing degree, and, as you walk in a field or in a garden, make 

 a pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or 

 cabbages. 



There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy ; 

 which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by 

 late writers ; and that is the curvicauda of old Mouset, mentioned 

 by Derham in his " Physico-Theology," p. 250; an insect worthy 

 of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dextrous a manner 

 on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But 

 then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is 

 the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions 

 afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have discovered that 

 singular production to be derived from the egg, or the musca 

 chamczleon ; see Geoffrey, t. xvii. f. 4. 



A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden and 

 house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying 

 them, would be allowed by the public to be a most useful and 

 important work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies 

 scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improvements would 

 soon follow of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy, 

 propagation, and in short of the life and conversation of these 

 animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of prevent- 

 ing their depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology 

 more than some neat plates that should well express the generic 



