APPENDIX I 423 



Page 146. Harvest Bug. This notorious little pest is not an 

 insect at all, but the young of several species of the mite, Trotn- 

 bidium. It is a minute red creature, scarcely discernible by the naked 

 eye, and infests plants and animals of various kinds. In the case of 

 human beings it burrows under the skin, causing a swelling, accom- 

 panied by much irritation. It usually collects in numbers behind 

 the knee or on other parts of the body where clothing fits tightly. 



Page 146. Long shining fly. This insect is nearly related to 

 the fly Piophila caset, which is the parent of the well-known 

 maggots, commonly called cheese-hoppers. [R. I. P.] 



Page 146. Turnip-flies. Also from their powers of hopping 

 called turnip-yfoas. As White says, however, this little insect is 

 neither a fly nor a flea, but a beetle (Phyllotreta nemorum). Both 

 in its larval and adult forms it does much damage to turnip crops 

 by devouring the leaves of the plant. [R. I. P.] 



Page 147. Oestrus curvicauda. This insect, the horse bot-fly 

 or horse gad-fly, the Gastrophilis equi of modern naturalists, much 

 resembles a honey-bee in size and colour. It lays its eggs on the 

 skin of horses, asses, and mules, instinctively selecting a spot well 

 within reach of the quadruped's mouth. The maggot after emerging 

 from the egg sets up irritation. The horse thereupon licks the 

 infested spot, and swallows the maggot. But the maggot, instead 

 of perishing, attaches itself to the walls of its host's stomach and 

 there stays in perfect security for about a year, when, being nearly 

 full grown, it makes its way to the outer air by way of the 

 intestines, and completes its development on the ground. Linnaeus 

 confounded this species with the ox warble-fly (Hypoderma bovis), 

 which lives in the larval stage beneath the skin of oxen, and gives 

 rise to the disease referred to later on by White as the puckeridge. 

 -[R. I. P.] 



Page 147. THE STAR-TAILED MAGGOT is, as White states, the 

 larva of a large broad, somewhat bee-like fly, now called Stratiomys 

 chamceleon, which may be seen on the wing in the neighbourhood 

 of marshes, ponds, or ditches. The larva is a large, evil-looking 

 aquatic grub, covered with a tough blackish skin, provided with a 

 small pointed head in front and at the opposite end with a breathing 

 orifice surrounded by a circlet of barbed hairs. Hence the epithet 

 " Star-tailed," which White applies to it. By means of the barbed 

 hairs the larva is enabled to suspend itself from the surface of the 



