VIII. 5 



CREATURES CONVEYED BY PLANTS 

 AND VEGETABLES 



IN recent times a great increase in the introduction of 

 the pests of green plants has taken place. Even in the old 

 days of sailing ships fresh or living vegetation could be trans- 

 ported from the Continent, and to this traffic we may possibly 

 owe those pests of cultivation, the Common and Small 

 White Butterflies, for who knows what past centuries 

 may not have brought ? But distance and time placed an 

 embargo on the carriage of fresh plants from much further 

 afield. The development of rapid transport has, however, 

 broken the spell which protected us from many an undesir- 

 able alien, and America and Britain now exchange their 

 pests of vegetation with disconcerting readiness. 



Vegetables, stocks for orchards, and flowering plants for 

 garden or greenhouse, have all encouraged this undesirable 

 testimony to the extent of our commerce. 



TYPES TRANSPORTED BY VEGETABLES 



The transport of vegetables from Europe to Britain, 

 especially for planting, may have in past times added new 

 forms to our fauna just as it certainly now adds new numbers 

 to old established species. It is no uncommon thing to find 

 live Locusts in the sale-rooms of Covent Garden, escapes 

 from consignments of cauliflowers brought from Naples a 

 hint of the carrying powers of green food. 



The general resemblance which the fauna of Britain 

 bears to that of Europe makes it difficult definitely to say 

 that such and such an obscure European creature was un- 

 known here until commerce introduced it. But no such 

 disability applies to comparison of the inhabitants of the old 

 and the new countries. So seldom are the native species of 

 the New World, or of our colonies elsewhere, identical with 

 those of Britain, that the naturalization credentials of a species 



