386 Mr. J. Hardy on the Primrose-leaf Miner, 



source, but whose terminations are quite a maze. On turning 

 up the underside of the leaf, however, none of these appearances 

 are perceptible ; the tint being of a uniform green. On holding 

 it up to the light, we see in the interior a number of dark 

 specks placed at widish intervals, generally following the several 

 windings, and like so many guide-posts stationed to indicate a 

 thoroughfare through the intricacies. Here then are characters 

 of no ordinary kind, tastefully designed, and evincing lengthened 

 operation ; how shall we decipher the legend ? and by whom, and 

 with what intention was it inscribed ? What a strange tale su- 

 perstition unfolds respecting these mysteries! June 1825. "In 

 some parts of Dorsetshire and Devonshire a species of blight or 

 grub * has settled on the blackberry [bramble] leaves, gnawing 

 them in a serpentine manner, so that the dead fibre shows 

 through the remaining green. This circumstance has produced, 

 in consequence of a certain prophecy, a great degree of alarm in 

 the minds of the lower classes residing on the borders of Dorset 

 and Devon. It has gone forth that a ' flying serpent ' will poison 

 the air, which, becoming impure, will cause the death of nineteen 

 out of twenty ; and that the time will be known by this parti- 

 cular appearance on the leaves, which the pseudo-prophet calls 

 the reflection of the serpent. The serpent whose pestilential 

 influence is to be felt, is Satan, whose period of bondage is ex- 

 pired. The deaths will take place principally among persons 

 under thirty years of age. Hundreds of individuals have paid 

 for charms to secure themselves from danger and infection.^^ 

 (Annual Register for 1825, Chronicle, p. 89.) But from the 

 ravings of folly, let us now turn to the explications of fact. In 

 Rennie^s interesting little work on ' Insect Architecture,' vol. i. 

 p. 223, 2nd ed., there is a short account of this phsenomenon, 

 with a representation of one of its variable configurations. It is 

 there ascribed to the work of a mining caterpillar, which exca- 

 vates the pulp from beneath those parts of the upper membrane 

 of the leaf, which are left colourless. The small granular bodies 

 already referred to are its ejectamenta, and they follow, although 

 the author rather denies this, the track the miner has taken du- 

 ring its labours. This is so far correct ; but from the connexion 

 of the statement, — the mining caterpillars of small Lepidoptera 

 being treated of, and the use of the word " Caterpillar," — one 

 would infer, that the author imagined that it belonged to some 

 minute moth ; and such, till I recently had an opportunity of 

 investigating the subject, I always understood was the meaning 

 implied. But this is a mistake, for the little miner is the maggot 

 or larva of a small, black, two-winged fly belonging to the genus 



* This is occasioned by the caterpillar of a minute moth. 



