194? INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Thejl owers and shrubs, that form the ornament of our 

 parterres and pleasure-grounds, seem less exposed to 

 insect depredation than the produce of the kitchen- 

 garden ; yet still there are not a few that suffer from it. 

 The foliage of one of our greatest favourites, the rose, 

 often loses all its loveliness and lustre from the excre- 

 ments of the Aphides that prey upon it. The leaf-cutter 

 bee also (Megachile* cenluncularis\ by cutting pieces 

 out to form for its young its cells of curious construction, 

 disfigures it considerably; and the froth frog-hopper 

 (Cercopis spumaria) aided by the saw-fly of the rose (Hy- 

 lotoma Rosce} contributes to check the luxuriance of its 

 growth, and to diminish the splendour of its beauty. 

 Reaumur has given the history of a fly (Merodon Nar~ 

 cissi) whose larva feeds in safety within the bulbs of the 

 Narcissus, and destroys them ; and also of another, 

 though he neglects to describe the species, which tar- 

 nishes the gay parterre of the florist, whose delight is 

 to observe the freaks of nature exhibited in the various 

 many-coloured streaks which diversify the blossom of 

 the tulip, by devouring its bulbs 5 . Kay notices another 

 mentioned by Swammerdam, probably Bibio hortulana, 

 which he calls the deadliest enemy of the flowers of the 

 spring. He accuses it of despoiling the gardens and 

 fields of every blossom, and so extinguishing the hope 

 of the year c . But you must not take up a prejudice 

 against an innocent creature, even under the warrant of 

 such weighty authority ; for the insect which our great 

 naturalist has arraigned as the author of such devastation 

 is scarcely guilty, if it be at all a culprit, in the degree 



a Apis. **. c. 2. . K. b Reaum. iv. 499. 



c Rai. Hist. Ins. Prolegom. xi. 



