96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



an animal that wants to be better known. The country people 

 here call it the turnip-fly and black dolphin ; but I know it to be 

 one of the coleoptera ; the " chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, fe- 

 moribus posticis crassissimis." In very hot summers they 

 abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in a field or in 

 a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves 

 of the turnips or cabbages.* 



There is an wstrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy ; 

 which, because it is omitted by Linna3us, is also passed over by 

 late writers ; and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned 

 by Derham in his Physico-theology, p. 250 : an insect worthy 

 of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a 

 manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. 

 But then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus 

 is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he men- 

 tions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have discovered 

 that singular production to be derived from the egg of the musca 

 chamceleon.-^ See Geoffroy, t. 17, f- 4. 



A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, 

 and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroy- 

 ing them, would be allowed by the public to be a most useful 

 and important work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies 

 scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improvements would 

 soon follow of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy, 

 propagation, and in short the life and conversation of these ani- 

 mals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing 

 their depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology 

 more than some neat plates that should well express the generic 

 distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; for I am well 



* A species of haltica, of which the H- nemorum is the most noted, though several of this 

 extensive but minute genus are equally hurtful to the young turnip-plant, devouring the cotyledon 

 i>r seed-leaves immediately on their appearance above ground, so that, in consequence of their 

 ravages, the land is often obliged to be re-sown, and frequently with no better success. So ex- 

 tensive is the mischief sometimes caused by these tiny insects alone, according to Arthur Young, 

 the celebrated agriculturist, that, in the year 1//6, the loss sustained by the turnip-growers of 

 Devonshire amounted to full j100,000 ; and yet, until very recently, from their minuteness and 

 the obscurity of their habits, but little of the economy of these insects has been understood, 

 though, as they are known only in the adult or beetle state upon the turnip-plant, it is obvious 

 that they must have undergone their previous transformations elsewhere, whence half the remedies 

 that have been proposed against their depredations, such as steeping; of the seed (in the supposi 

 tion that the eggs were thereon laid), particular modes of sowing, and the like, are clearly of no 

 araU, excepting in so far as they may tend to promote the growth of the plant, which is safe 

 from the attacks of insects of this genus from the time it has put forth its rough leaves. ED. 



t The larva of musca chamaleon, or, as it is now called, stratiomys chamalton, is wholly 

 aquatic. ED. 



