174 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Britain, (Oscinis Frit,} which does the mischief by get- 

 ting into the ear, as does likewise O. lineata, F. A small 

 species of moth described by Reaumur, though not 

 narrjed by Linne, which may be called Tinea Hordei, 

 ( Ypsolophusgranellus?) devours the grain when laid up in 

 the granary. This fly deposits several eggs, perhaps 

 twenty or thirty, on a single grain ; but as one grain 

 only is to be the portion of one larva, they disperse when 

 hatched, each selecting one for itself, which it enters from 

 without at a place more tender than the rest ; and this 

 single grain furnishes a sufficient supply of food to sup- 

 port the caterpillar till it is ready to assume the pupa. 

 Concealed within this contracted habitation, the little 

 animal does nothing that may betray it to the watchful 

 eye of man, not even ejecting its excrements from its 

 habitation ; so that there may be millions within a heap 

 of corn, where you would not suspect there was one a . 



I have not observed that oats suffer from insects, ex- 

 cept from the universal subterranean destroyer of the 

 grasses, the wire- worm, of which I shall give you a more 

 full account hereafter; and occasionally from an Aphis. 

 The only important grain that now remains unnoticed 

 is the maize or Indian corn. Besides the chintz-bug-fly, 

 a little beetle b (Phaleria cornuta) appears to devour it ; 

 and it has probably other unrecorded enemies. The 

 Ouinea corn of America (Holcus bicolor}^ as well as other 

 kinds of grain, is, according to Abbott, often much in- 

 jured by the larva of a moth (Noctuafrugiperda, Smith), 

 which feeds upon the main shoot c . 



3 Act. Stockh. 1750. 128. Reaum. ii. 480, &c. 



b This insect was taken in maize by Mr. Sparshall of Norwich. 



c Smith's Abbott's Insects of Georgia, 191. 



