168 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



correctly ; it being probably the larva of some coleop- 

 terous insect, perhaps of one of the numerous tribe of 

 Brachyptera or rove-beetles which are not universally car- 

 nivorous. This animal was discovered to infest the wheat 

 in its earliest stage of growth after vegetation had com- 

 menced; and there was reason to believe that it began even 

 with the grain itself. It eats into the young plant about an 

 inch below the surface, devouring the central part ; and 

 thus, vegetation being stopped, it dies. Out of fifty acres 

 sown withjthis grain in 1802, ten had been destroyed by 

 the grub in question so early as October a . Other preda- 

 ceous Coleoptera will also attack young corn. This is 

 done by the larva of Zabrus gibbus, particularly with 

 respect to wheat. In the spring of 1813 not less than 

 twelve German hides (Hufen\ equal to two hundred and 

 thirty English acres, were destroyed by it in the canton 

 of Seeburg, near Halle in Germany; and Germar (who 

 with other members of the Society of Natural History, 

 at that place, ascertained the fact,) suspects that it was 

 the same insect, described by Cooti, an Italian author, 

 which caused great destruction in Upper Italy in 1776\ 

 Not only is the larva, which probably lives in that state 

 three years, thus injurious ; but, what one would not have 

 expected, the perfect beetle itself attacks the grain when 

 in the ear, clambering up the stems at night in vast num- 

 bers to get at it. Along with the larvae of this insect were 

 found, in the proportion of about one fourth, those of 

 another beetle (Melolontha nificornis), which seemed to 

 contribute to the mischief 5 . 



a Linn. Trans, ix. 156-61. 



b Germar's Mag. der Ent. i. 1-10. Mr. Stephens, in his Illus- 

 trations of British Entomology (No. I. p. 4.), very judiciously asks, 

 " May not these herbivorous larvae have been the principal cause of 



