VEGETABLE PLANTS, 45 



country, one being entirely black and one 

 having two bright golden or yellow stripes 

 upon his back. Their habits are similar. 

 When approached they will spring from the 

 plant in a true flea-like manner, and, if in 

 imagined danger, feign inanimation in a 'pos- 

 sum-like manner. This trait of their character 

 may readily be taken advantage of by cooping 

 in the vicinity of the beds a hen which has a 

 good brood of chickens old enough to run 

 freely among the plants. The chicks soon 

 learn the trick, and make a reality of the feint 

 of death by relentlessly swallowing all of them 

 which come within their reach ; and as by 

 constantly running amongst the plants they 

 continually scare them off, we have never dis- 

 covered a better remedy for beds already 

 infested with them than this ; and were the 

 simple eating of the plants the extent of the 

 mischief of which they are capable, this rem- 

 edy, with perhaps an occasional sprinkling of 

 plaster, carbolic powder, soot, or any thing 

 distasteful or injurious to them, would be all 

 the remedy to be desired. But as we have 

 shown that the amount they eat is nothing in 

 comparison to the damage following the lay- 

 ing of their eggs, with the attendant results, 



