ENTOMOLOGY. 1 75 



agriculturist, are destroyed at the moment they are 

 most to be dreaded, by the genus of Ground-beetles. Nor 

 do these afford sustenance to animals of the same scien- 

 tific class alone. Our native birds, those which follow on 

 wherever cultivation is, whose delightful notes meet 

 the ear at the rising of the sun, whose melody cheers 

 the husbandman fatigued at noonday, and by whose 

 evening concerts the pure heart is elevated and enrap- 

 tured, which teach us a glorious lesson of confidence, 

 by rearing and educating their young at our very doors 

 these also are provided for by the existence of noxious 

 insects : and little does he study his own interest, 

 whose selfishness causes their destruction. Other ani- 

 mals also feed upon insects. I am not compelled to go 

 back to the Romans, to speak of their larvae fattened to 

 glut the appetites of epicures ; nor to point to the Afri- 

 can greedily devouring his roasted caterpillar, while the 

 larvae of one of the largest species of beetle, is at the 

 present day an article of luxury with many in South 

 America, and is served up at the tables of some of the 

 most wealthy inhabitants of the West India islands. But 

 from no insect belonging to this order, I might almost 

 have said this class, do we derive so much benefit as 

 from the genus Melre, in which is found the blistering- 

 fly. The blistering, or as it is called in commerce, the 

 Spanish-fly, is found in large quantities in the South of 

 Europe ; and is particularly abundant in Spain. They 

 are collected from the leaves of different trees in summer, 

 and are afterwards destroyed by the fumes of vinegar, 

 and dried in the sun ; when applied externally to the 

 human body, they act as a powerful vesicatory ; when 

 given internally, as a stimulant of great efficacy. In 

 many derangements of the system, they are, in the hands 

 of the judicious practitioner, the means of preserving many 

 of our race. When exhibited by the ignorant empiric, 

 they are not unfrequently productive of the most severe 

 sufferings and lamentable deaths. Our common potato-fly 

 is one of this genus of insects, and while it possesses all 

 the virtues of the Spanish-fly, it does not produce the bad 

 symptoms, which often attend the employment of that 

 remedy : and Professor Barton of Philadelphia, after 



