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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



sect seems to have some mortal foe, some evil 

 spirit, as it were, ever in close pursuit of him. 

 Plant lice, for instance, are savagely slaughtered 

 by the innocent looking little beetle, called the 

 lady-bird, as they are also by several species of 

 fly. Kirby says that he found it very easy to clear 

 a plant or small tree of lice, by placing upon it a 

 few larvae of these flies. If we only knew fully 

 the habits of the various insects, no doubt we 

 might train up packs of hunters that would take 

 the track of plum weevils and canker worms, and 

 hunt them to death, as hounds follow a fox ; but 

 the difficulty is, as before suggested, that we do 

 not know friends from foes. There is a world- 

 wide difference between a patriot and a secesli, but 

 they look so much alike, that frequently we mis- 

 take and fire on our friends. 



DOR-BUGS, PEA-BUGS AND ROSE-BUGS. 



These may be set down as unmitigated rascals, 

 with some others already alluded to. We use 

 their common New England names, which are 

 neither elegant nor accurate. The dor-bug does 

 more mischief than is generally known. The grub, 

 which is a white worm, with a brownish head, de- 

 vours the roots of grass and other plants, often 

 destroying lai-ge tracts of the latter. In Europe, 

 the cockchafer, which is of the same class, has at 

 times been destructive of all vegetation for miles. 

 About seventy years ago, a farmer in Norwich, in 

 England, with his men, gathered eighty bushels of 

 these beetles, and the English societies for many 

 years off'ered premiums for the best account of 

 this insect, and the means of checking its ravages. 

 The common dor-bug is frequently destructive to 

 the foliage of cherry and other fruit trees. They 

 may be effectually checked by shaking them off at 

 night, upon sheets. They may then be destroyed 

 with boiling water, and fed to swine. They may 

 be better gathered early in the morning, when 

 they do not attempt to fly. 



We would not be so unfeeling as to publish 

 what we know about pea-bugs, were it not so easy 

 to guard against them. If you examine early 

 green peas on the table, you will often find on 

 them a whitish spot, under Avhich is a small mag- 

 got, which when properly boiled and buttered, is 

 perfectly healthful, and no doubt very nourishing ; 

 but as many prefer their meat served up in a sep- 

 arate dish, it is well enough to know how to effect 

 that object. The pea-bug is usually planted in 

 the pea. About the time the j)ea is half-grown in 

 the pod, she comes up from the ground, punc- 

 tures the pod and deposits in it opposite each pea, 

 an egg, which hatches and becomes a grub, and 

 works its way into the pea, and if not eaten green, 

 is transformed into the weevil, which remains 

 quietly in place till the next spring. Now, if you 

 will put the seed peas into water nearly boiling. 



the weevils will all die, or come out, or if the peas 

 are kept over one season, the weevils will not sur- 

 vive. If weevils are planted, they are sure to 

 come up. As they fly very well, they may come 

 to us from our neighbor's grounds, but if market- 

 men should find that their customers paid more 

 for green peas free from grubs, they would soon 

 destroy them by some of the means suggested. 



The rose-chafer, or rose-bug, is sometimes a 

 great scourge not only upon the rose, but upon 

 the grape also. The eggs are deposited about four 

 inches under ground, where they hatch in autumn, 

 descend below frost for the winter, ascend again 

 in spring, and stop near the surface, where the 

 grub becomes a pupa, and in June, at about the 

 time of the first blooming of roses, assumes the 

 final form of a beetle, digs its way up to the sur- 

 face, and enters upon all such mischief as its evil 

 nature prompts. The only method of destroying 

 them is by picking or shaking them off, and pul- 

 ing them into boiling water. A few days of per- 

 severing effort will reduce their numbers, and give 

 the roses a ftiir chance. 



We advise our readers to study carefully Dr. 

 Harris's Treatise, both for pleasure and for prac- 

 tical, useful knowledge, and at the same time to 

 carefully study from nature the habits of the in- 

 sect tribes. 



VOICES OF ANIMALS. 



There is a chapter in the natural history of 

 animals that has hardly been touched upon as yet, 

 and that will be especially interesting with refer- 

 ence to families. The voices of animals have a 

 family character not to be mistaken. All the can- 

 idtC bark and howl. The fox, the wolf, the dog 

 have the same kind of utterance, though on a 

 somewhat different pitch. All the bears growl, 

 from the white bear of the Arctic snows to the 

 small black bear of the Andes. All the cats miau, 

 from our quiet fireside companion to the lions, 

 and tigers, and panthers of the forest and jungle. 

 This last may seem a strange assertion ; but to 

 any one who has listened critically to their sounds 

 and analyzed their voices, the roar of the lion is 

 but a gigantic miau, bearing about the same pro- 

 portion to that of a cat as its stately and majestic 

 form does to the smaller, softer, more peaceful as- 

 pect of the cat. Yet, notwithstanding the differ- 

 ence in their size, who can look at the lion, wheth- 

 er in his more sleepy mood, as he lies curled up 

 in the corner of his cage, or in his fiercer moments 

 of hunger or of rage, without being reminded of a 

 cat ? And this is not merely the resemblance of 

 one carnivorous animal to another ; for no one 

 was ever reminded of a dog or a wolf by a lion. 

 Again, all the horses and donkeys neigh ; for the 

 bray of the donkey is only a harsher neigh, pitched 

 on a different key, it is true, but a sound of the 

 same character, as the donkey himself is but a 

 clumsy and dwarfish horse. All the cows low, 

 from the buffalo roaming the prairie, the musk-ox 

 of the Arctic ice-fields, or the jack of Asia, to the 

 cattle feeding in our pastures. Among the birds 

 this similaritv of voice in families is still more 



