RAVAGES OF GRASS AND TREE-HOPPERS. 7 



Here let us stop and compare, as applied to both our revellers of 

 the summer, the dictum of poet and the evidence of naturalist. 



First for judgment on the tree-hopper. The insect of Ana- 

 creon might and may possibly be of more innoxious charac- 

 ter ; but we are told by Stoll, that the common species of Tet- 

 lix or Cicada, what he calls " La CigaleVieilleuse" does infinite 

 injury to trees, especially to plantations of coffee,* by boring 

 grooves and holes in the smaller branches, both for the depo- 

 sition of eggs and for extracting juices. 



Now, Mr. Grasshopper! Are thy "joy" and "luxury" 

 the joy and luxury of perfect innocence ? On ocular evidence 

 dost thou stand condemned. Each notch in the verdant, much 

 more the withering blade, is as a mouth opened against thee 

 in mute accusation. True, we hear and read but little of thy 

 misdemeanors, while those of "the fly,"f and "the wire- 

 worm,"^: and "the grub," are trumpeted loudly forth, and 

 figure infamously in the ' Newgate Calendar ' of the indignant 

 farmer. Yet do we suspect, that where thou and thy merry 

 companions most abound, even in the meads of England, the 

 mouthfulls of the cow must lack moisture, and the crops of 

 hay lack weight ; and when we read of thy continental fellows 

 caught in hand-nets by the bushel, what must we think of 

 the amount of mischief committed, or likely to have been 

 wrought, by the combination of their jaws ! But, however 



* At Surinam. t Aphides of the hop, so called. 



I Larva of the Click Beetle. Larva of the Cockchafer. 



