178 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Great profits are sometimes derived by farmers from 

 their crops of clover-seed : but this does not happen very 

 often; for a small weevil, (Apion Jtayifemoratum,) which 

 abounds every where at almost all times of the year, feeds 

 upon the seed of the purple clover, and in most seasons 

 does the crop considerable damage ; so that a plant of the 

 fairest appearance will, in consequence of the voracity of 

 this little enemy, produce scarcely any thing. Another 

 species (Apionjlavipes) infests the Dutch or white clover a . 

 The young plants of purple clover, when just sprung, 

 are often, as Mr. Joseph Stickney pointed out to me, 

 much injured by the samelittle jumping beetles (Haltica) 

 that attack the turnips. 



But not only, if let loose to the work of destruction, 

 might insects annihilate our grain and pulse ; they would 

 also deprive the earth of that beautiful green carpet which 

 now covers it, and is so agreeable and so refreshing to 

 the sight. When you see a large tract of land lying 

 fallow, as is sometimes the case in open districts, with no 

 intervening patches of verdure, how unpleasant and un- 

 comfortable is it to your eye ! What then would be your 

 sensations, were the whole face of the earth bare, and 

 not dressed by Flora ? But such a state of things would 

 soon take place, if to punish us, or to teach us thankful- 

 ness to the great Arbiter of our fate, the insects that feed 

 upon the grass of our pastures were to become as gene- 

 rally numerous as they are occasionally permitted to do. 

 One of the worst of these ravagers is the grub of the 

 common cock-chafer (Melolontha vulgaris.) b This insect, 



a Markwick, Marsham and Lehmann in Linn. Trans, vi. 142 . 

 and Kirby in ditto, ix. 37. 42. n. 19. 23. 

 b PLATE XVII. FIG. 12. 



