124 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has 

 tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe 

 set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will 

 examine the nightingales next spring. 



FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. 12, 1771. 



NHJHTlNtJALES EGG. 



LETTER XLIII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, 

 which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the 

 summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of women 

 and children, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This 

 animal (which we call a harvest bug) is very minute, scarce 

 discernible to the naked eye ; of a bright scarlet colour, and of 

 the genus of acarus. 1 They are to be met with in gardens on 

 kidneybeans, or any legumens, but prevail only in the hot 

 months of summer. Warreners, as some have assured me, are 

 much infested by them on chalky-downs, where these insects 

 sometimes swarm to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, 

 and to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as 

 to be thrown into fevers. 



There is a small long shining fly in these parts very trouble- 

 some to the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying 

 its eggs in the bacon while it is drying : these eggs produce 

 maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons 

 1 Leptus autumnalii of Latreille. 



