INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 1 83 



Our national beverage ale, so valuable and heartening 

 to the lower orders, and so infinitely preferable to ardent 

 spirits and tea, is indebted to another vegetable, the hop, 

 for its agreeable conservative bitter. This plant so pre- 

 cious has numberless enemies in the Lilliputian world 

 to which I am introducing you. Its roots are subject to 

 the attack of the caterpillar of a singular species of moth 

 (Hepiolus Hwnuli\ known to collectors by the name of 

 the ghost, that sometimes does them considerable in- 

 jury 1 . A small beetle also (Haltica concinna) is parti- 

 cularly destructive to the tender shoots early in the year; 

 and upon the presence or absence of Aphides, known * 

 by the name of tliejiy^ as in the case of peas, the crop of 

 every year depends ; so that the hop-grower is wholly 

 at the mercy of insects. They are the barometer that 

 indicates the rise and fall of his wealth. 



If the beer-drinker be thus interested in the history of 

 these animals, equally so is the drinker of tea. Indeed 

 sugar is an article so universally useful and agreeable, 

 that what concerns the cane that produces it seems to 

 concern every one. This also affords a tempting food 

 to insects. The caterpillar of a white moth, called the 

 borer, for destroying which a reward of fifty guineas is 

 offered by the Society of Arts, is in this respect a great 

 nuisance, as is an unknown species of horned beetle 5 . 

 An ant also (formica analis) makes a lodgement in the 

 interior of the sugar-cane in Guinea, and destroys it. 

 But the creature of this class most destructive to the 

 sugar-cane, is one of the latter genus that does not 

 devour it, and is therefore improperly called Formica 



a De Geer, i. 487. 



b I owe this information to the late Robinson Kittoe, Esq. 



