38 VEGETABLE PAKASITES. 



non of a vegetable living entirely on air. There are also 

 vegetable parasites (such as the dodder, &c.) which are sup- 

 ported solely at the expense of other plants. But who would 

 expect to find in a vegetable an appropriator of animal food, 

 and that from an insect subject? Yet such would seem to be 

 the case with several Cryptogam ous, or mushroom-like plants, 

 which have been found growing, in Guadaloupe, on wasps,* 

 also upon hawk-moths and chafers.f These vegetable para- 

 sites begin, it is said, their destructive operations on the bodies 

 of the living animals, and continue them, like the grubs of 

 ichneumons, till their victims' death. 



In our own country, bees and humble-bees are supposed, 

 sometimes, to have a species of mucor, or other fungi, growing 

 on them,, though it is thought, by some, that the adhering 

 stamina of flowers may have been mistaken for such parasitic 

 sprouts. By Mr. Kirby these vegetable parasites are con- 

 sidered to arise from moisture, which, accumulating on the 

 insect while in a state of torpidity, may afford thus a bed or 

 seed-plot for these mushroom-like excrescences of a diseased 

 nature. 



We began our sketch of parasitic insects by pointing to 

 their moral analogy with parasitic vices ; and now, having 

 traced, though slightly, the round of their vampyre-like pro- 

 ceedings, we will only take notice of one other resembling 

 feature, thereby suggested, which will serve, at least, to make 



* By M. Kicard. f By Dr. Mitchell. 



