XL!!I.] OF SELBORNE. 125 



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 Musca 

 pulris of Linnteus : it is to be seen in the summer in farm- 

 kitchens, on the bacon-racks and about the mantelpieces, 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 saltatoria, femoribus 

 posticis crassissimis " " the vaulting chrysomela, with the back 

 part of the thighs very thick." 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 Linnteus, 1 is also passed over 

 by late writers, and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, 

 mentioned by Derham in his " Physico-Theology," p. 250 : an 

 insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so 

 dexterous 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 ento- 

 mologists have discovered that singular production to be derived 

 from the egg of the Musca chamceleon. 2 



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

 and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of de- 

 stroying 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 preventing their depredations. 



1 This is a mistake on White's part : the Horse Bot-fly, Gasterophilus equi, 

 Leach, is described by Linnaeus under the name of (Estrus bovis. 



2 Stratiomys chanuekon, De Geer. 



