INSECTS, OR DESTROYING THEM. 63 



holes of burrowing insects, &c. In plant-houses, the perfect insect, 

 such as the red spider, the green fly, &c., is destroyed by fumigation 

 with tobacco smoke ; dusting with tobacco dust, snuff, or other insect 

 killer; syringing with tobacco juice, Gishurst's compound, a solu- 

 tion of smelling-salt, soot, &c., &c. The perfect insect is also de- 

 stroyed in hothouses by the sublimation of sulphur, which may be 

 mixed with lime or loam, and washed over the heating-flues and pipes, 

 or placed on a hot stone or plate, or in a chafing-dish. Dusting the 

 leaves of plants under glass with sulphur, in a state of powder, is found 

 to destroy the red spider. Beetles, wood-lice, and other crawling 

 wingless insects, are also destroyed by tempting them with food con- 

 taining poison. A remarkable but very efficient mode of destroying 

 the vine-moth in France has been discovered by Victor Audoin, which 

 might in many cases, we have no doubt, be adopted in British gardens. 

 This mode is founded on the practice of lighting fires during the 

 night in vineyards, to which the moths are attracted, and burn them- 

 selves. M. Audoin has modified this practice in a very ingenious 

 manner, which has been attended with the most effective results. He 

 places a flat vessel with a light on the ground, and covers it with a 

 bell-glass besmeared with oil. The pyralis, attracted by the light, 

 flies towards it ; and, in the midst of the circle which it describes in 

 flying, it is caught and retained by the glutinous sides of the bell-glass, 

 where it instantly perishes by suffocation. Two hundred of these 

 lights were established in a part of the vineyard of M. Delahante, of 

 about four acres in extent, and they were placed about twenty-five feet 

 from each other. The fires lasted about two hours ; and scarcely had 

 they been lighted, when a great number of moths came flying around, 

 which were speedily destroyed by the oil. The next day the deaths 

 were counted. Each of the 200 vessels contained, on an average, 150 

 moths. This sum multiplied by the first number gives a total of 

 30,000 moths destroyed. Of these 30,000 insects, we may reckon one 

 fifth females, having the abdomen full of eggs, which would speedily 

 have laid, on an average, 150 eggs each. This last number, multi- 

 plied by the fifth of 30,000, that is to say, by 6000, would give for 

 the final result of this first destruction the sum of 900,000. On the 

 7th of August, 180 lamps were lighted in the same place, each of 

 which on an average destroyed 80 moths, or a total of ] 4,400. In 

 these 14,400 moths there was reckoned to be, not only one sixth, but 

 three fourths, females : but, admitting that there was only one half 

 females, or 7200; and, multiplying this by 150 (the number of eggs 

 that each would have laid), we have a total of 1,080,000 eggs de- 

 stroyed. Two other experiments were made on the 8th and 10th of 

 August, which caused the destruction of 9260 moths. (' Gard. Mag.,' 

 vol. xiii. p. 487.) 



Luring away the Perfect Insect. Attracting the perfect insect from the 

 plant or fruit by some other kind of food to which they give the prefer- 

 ence and which is of less value to the gardener, may perhaps some- 

 times be effected. Wasps, hornets, and flies are easily entrapped in 

 bottles filled with beer or honeyed water. The best bottles are so formed 



