36 



NEV^ ENGLAND FARMER, 



Aagnst 15, 1832. 



HABITS OF INSECTS. 



Extract from the July number of the Xorth Ame,i- 

 can Revieiv. 

 Insects are now a formidable hoiIy, aud were 

 r.iiich more so in former times ivlitM tlieir habits 

 and persons were less f;iiiiiliarly liiiown. Men 

 bad not began to ask from whence they came, nor 

 wbithcr they were going; but they tbund tbeni 

 when they least desired their company, and there 

 was a sort of mystery in their movements, which, 

 more than anything else, tends to iiispire the feel- 

 in£j of dread. It was on this account that they 

 were first distinguished by the name bug, whicli, 

 however it may have degenerated into a watc 

 word of contempt at the present day, was former- 

 ly synonymous with ghost or spectre, and equally 

 alarming. The passage of scripture from the 

 Psalms, " Thou shah not need to he afraid of any 

 bus by night," as it stood in Mattliew's old Eng- 

 lish Bible, is iirobably known to our readers. 

 Later translators have judiciously substituted a 

 more general word in its stead. But even now, 

 considering their power to destroy our peace, 

 there is some reason to fear them, and were there 

 nothing else formidable about them, their mnn- 

 bers are sufficiently alarming. When we bear 

 their concert on a summer evening, it sounds as 

 if every leaf and every blade of grass had found a 

 voice ; though, in fact, there is no voice in the 

 matter. They deal wholly in instrumental mu- 

 sic ; some have heard a voice like sound proceed- 

 ing from a moth occasionally, but their concert, — 

 great nature's bum, — is produced by rubbing (be 

 bard shells of the wings against tin? trunk or to- 

 gether, which makes a sharp and shrill sound, that 

 can be heard at a considerable distance. The 

 hum of insects on the wing can he beard when 

 the performer is invisible. We remember, that 

 once standing in a summer day on the top of a 

 high hill, we beard asoimd as of a million of bees 

 directly over our head, when not an insect, which 

 could be held responsible for any noise, was with- 

 in our view. Such cases are not tincommon, and 

 the only explication is, that the authors of the 

 sound are distant, and its loudness deceives us in- 

 to the impression that it is nigh. 



We will suggest some advantages of an ac- 

 quaintance with this subject ; we mean a general 

 acquaintance, such as jiopular works arc calcula- 

 ted to give. For example, the insect called the 

 death-watoii was formerly thought to sound the 

 alarm of death to some inmate of the mansion 

 where it was hoard, though it woidd have required 

 a perpetual cholera to have fulfilled half thenum- 

 bei of his ])rcdictions. Now, it is known to pro 

 cecd from a little wood boring insect, whose skull 

 is somewhat bard, aiid who uses it for the pur- 

 pose of a signal to others. Standing on its bind 

 legs, it beats regularly on the board a number 

 of times, — a process, which, comparing its force 

 with the size of the insect, one would think more 

 likely to be fatal to itself than to those who bear 

 it. The bug, so well known in connexion with 

 "rosy dreams and shiitibers light," when it was 

 first imported into England, occasioned equal dis- 

 maj', — an alarm not wholly superstitious and un- 

 reasonable, when we remember bo\v often it has 

 " murdered the sleep of the innocent as well as 

 the guilty." If we may believe David Dean, the 

 Scotch bewail its introduction among them as one 

 of the evils of the Union, and for that reason dis- 

 tinguish it by the name of the Ensrlish bug. The 



history of the Hessian fly, which made its appear- j it is bow, and the practice is by no means obsolete 

 ance at the close of the American war, and which for every family to supply itself with moschettoes 



certain aged people, believing it to be a conse 

 quence of our se])aration from the British Gov- 

 ernment, named the Revolution fly, shows )iow 

 much alarm and trouble ignorance of the charac- 

 ter of a little insect may occasion. They first ap- 

 peared in Staten Island, aud spread lapidly, de- 

 stroying the wheat on their way. They passed 

 the Delaware in clouds, and swarmed like the flies 

 of Egypt, in every place where their ))resence was 

 unwelcome. The British, naturally liislikiug every- 

 thing that savored of revolution, were in great fear 

 lest they should reach their islan<l, and resolved 

 to prevent it, if necessary, with all the ])Ower of 

 their fleet. The privy council sat day after day ; 

 despatches were sent to all the ibrcign ministers ; 

 expresses were sent to the custom houses to close 

 the ports ; Sir Joseph Banks, who held such mat- 

 ters in special charge, — as Swift said Mr Flam- 

 stead was once appointed by Government to look 

 after the stars, — was called upon to exert himself, 

 with such importunity, that if such a thing were 

 possible, he grew almost profane upon the occca- 

 sion. He shouted across the ocean to Dr Mitch- 

 ell, while the Doctor stood wringing bis hands 

 upon the western shore. When be had collected 

 all the information which could be furnished by 

 scientific and practical men concerning the bug 

 in question, amounting to more than two hundred 

 octavo pages, he enlightened the Government with 

 the information, that be did not know what the 

 oreaturc was ; a report satisfactory as far as it 

 went, no doubt, but which might, for aught that 

 appears, have been reduced to somewliat smaller 

 dimensions. If any one could have furnished a 

 scientific description of the insect, it might proba- 

 bly have been arrested in its depredations, and if 

 not, there would have been some consolation to 

 men, could they have pointed it out to the indig- 

 nation and scorn of the world. 



Our cultivators can furnish illustrations enough 

 of the evils of ignorance on this subject. The 

 common locust, robinia pseudacacia, whose velvet 

 leaf exceeds other foliage in beauty, as much as its 

 wood exceeds that of other trees in value, is almost 

 ruined in New England by the larva; of a moth, 

 which is known to naturalists, but which no means 

 have yet been able to destroy. We know that in 

 plantations lately made, the ravages of the insect 

 have been confined to their sunny borders ;but wc 

 greatly fear, that in a year or two, they will carry 

 their inroads into the heart of the groves. Cer- 

 tainly, tlie fine trees of this description which 

 fringe the highways and surround the cottages, 

 must be given up to this little pest, which, so fin- 

 as we know at present, will only cease from its 

 labors on condition of being cut in two. The cauk- 

 erworm, too, is waging a war of exteritiination upon 

 our fruit trees. After passing the winter in the 

 ground, — would that it were its grave, — the insect 

 makes over the tree to its heirs, which can only, 

 with our present knowledge, be checked by mean 

 that like curing the headache by amjiutation, are 

 too eflectual for the end proposed. Pear orchard 

 resemble the gardens of the French nobleman, 

 mentioned by Madame De Stael, which were 

 planted with dead trees in order to insjnre con- 

 templation ; not knowing enough of the borer to be 

 able to bring him to justice, the cultivatoi can only 

 sigh over his more than lost labors. But for Dr 

 Franklin, it would have been more common than 



by keeping large open vessels of water near ibeir 

 houses, as if for the special benefit of this insect, 

 whose baik an<l bite are equally undesirable. The 

 moscbctto lays his eggs upon the water, where 

 they are hatched into grubs, which float with their 

 heads downward ; when the time for their change 

 is come, they break through their outer covering 

 and draw themselves out standing ujjright, so that 

 they appear like a vessel, the corslet being the 

 boat, and the body officiating as mast and sail. 

 Their former sea-change is now reversed ; for, 

 should their naval cstablishtnent overset, they are 

 inevitably lost moschettoes. As soon as their 

 wings are dried, they fly away to their work of 

 blood. As six or seven generations are born in a 

 summer, and each mother c-an furnish two hun- 

 dred aud fifty eggs, it is evident that a vessel of 

 water, properly neglected, will people the air of a 

 whole neighborhood. But there is no end to the 

 li.si of evils arising from ignorance on this sub- 

 ject. One of the choicest specimens of it we 

 have ever heard, is that of gardeners in Germany, 

 wlio collect and bury grubs in order to destroy 

 tliein, a mode of destruction quite as fatal, as that 

 of throwing fish into the water to drown them. 



It would be easy to give some striking illustra- 

 tions of the advantage of knowledge on this sub- 

 ject. The manner in which peach trees are se- 

 curid from the depredations of the insect which 

 every year destroys many, is familiarly known. 

 The insect deposits its eggs iu the bark of the 

 tic>', as nearly as possible to the surface of the 

 gri'iuid. When it is obliged to resort to the bran- 

 dies, besides that it is more easily discovered by 

 the gum which flows from the wound, the grub 

 nvould generally be arrested by the cold before it 

 would make its way to the root, where it retreats 

 in winter. By ascertaining the time when these 

 eggs are laid, and tying straw or matting round 

 the trunk of the tree, its injuries are easily pre- 

 vented. Wc are persuaded that the lavages of 

 the clothes-moth, the creature to whom food and 

 raiment are one, might be prevented by exposing 

 clothes to the light at the time of oviposition. 

 When the timber was found to be perishing in the 

 dock yards of Sweden, the King Jipplied to Lin- 

 utBus to discover a remedy, thus acknowledging 

 the dependence of connnerce, national defence, and 

 royal i)ower, njion hmiible scientific researclies. 

 He ascertained the time when the insect deposited 

 its eggs, and by sinking the timber in water at 

 that period, the evil was effectually iircvented. 



We certainly receive many serious injuries at 

 the hand of the insect race. But they are not 

 wholly unprovoked ; iior can it be denied, that if 

 they torment us, we also torment them. It is to 

 bo hoped that the time will come, when we shall 

 be able to deal with them as with larger animals, 

 exterminating tliose which cannot be employed in 

 the service of m.an. At present, however, their 

 ingenuity, their perseverance, and their numbers, 

 render it hopeless for man to make any general 

 crusade against tliem. But we have little to com- 

 plain of, compared with the inhabitants of warmer 

 climates. Dr Clark tells us, that in the Crimea, 

 he found the moschettoes so venomous, that in 

 spite of gloves, and every other defence, he was 

 one entire wound. In a sultry night, he sought 

 shelter iu bis carriage; they followed him there, 

 and when be nttejni)tcd to light a candle, they e\- 



