BLIGHT. 347 



when they were subjected, for the cure of their 

 maladies, to such medicines as album grcecum, or 

 the white bony excrement of dogs, bleached on the 

 bank, for their heartburns and acidities ; the 

 powder produced from burnt mice, as a dentifrice ; 

 millepedes, or woodlice, for nephritic and other 

 complaints ; and the ashes of earthworms, adminis- 

 tered in nervous and epileptic cases. 



Our apple-trees here are greatly injured, and some 

 annually destroyed by the agency of what seems to 

 be a very feeble insect. We call it, from habit, or 

 from some unassigned cause, the tf American blight" 

 (aphis lanata) ; this noxious creature being known 

 in some orchards by the more significant name of 

 " white blight." In the spring of the year a slight 

 hoariness is observed upon the branches of certain 

 species of our orchard fruit. As the season advances 

 this hoariness increases, it becomes cottony, and 

 toward the middle or the end of summer the 

 under sides of some of the branches are invested 

 with a thick, downy substance, so long as at times 

 to be sensibly agitated by the air. Upon examin- 

 ing this substance we find, that it conceals a multi- 

 tude of small, wingless creatures, which are busily 

 employed in preying upon the limb of the tree 

 beneath. This they are well enabled to do, by 

 means of a beak terminating in a fine bristle (Plate 

 5. Fig. 3.) ; this being insinuated through the 

 bark, and the sappy part of the wood; enables the 



