192 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



very injurious, particularly in light soils,) I have suc- 

 ceeded in breeding the fly, which proves of that tribe of 

 the Linnean genus Musca, now called Scatophaga. Be- 

 ing apparently undescribed, and new to my valued cor- 

 respondent Count Hoffmansegg to whom I sent it, I call 

 it S. Ceparum*. The diuretic asparagus, towards the 

 close of the season, is sometimes rendered unpalatable 

 by the numerous eggs of the asparagus beetle (Lema As- 

 paragi\ and its larvae feed upon the foliage after the 

 heads branch out. Cucumbers with us enjoy an immu- 

 nity from insect assailants ; but in America they are de- 

 prived of this privilege, an unascertained species, called 

 there the cucumber-fly, doing them great injury 5 . And, 

 to name no more, mushrooms, which are frequently cul- 

 tivated and much in request, often swarm with the mag- 

 gots of various Diptera and Coleoptera. 



The insects just enumerated are partial in their at- 

 tacks, confining themselves to one or two kinds of our 

 pulse or other vegetables. But there are others that 

 devour more indiscriminately the produce of our gar- 

 dens ; and of these in certain seasons and countries we 

 have no greater and more universal enemy than the ca- 

 terpillar of a moth called by entomologists Plusia Gam- 

 ma, from its having a character inscribed in gold on its 

 primary wings, which resembles that Greek letter. This 

 creature affords a pregnant instance of the power of 

 Providence to let loose an animal to the work of destruc- 



* Description of S. Ceparum. Cinereous, clothed with distant 

 black hairs, proceeding, particularly on the thorax, from a black point. 

 Legs nigrescent. Back of the abdomen of the male with an inter- 

 rupted black vitta down the middle. Wings immaculate. Poisers 

 and alulae pale yellow. Length 3| lines. 



b Barton in Philos. Magaz. ix. 62. 



