22 DEVASTATIONS OF THE APHIDES. 



positories of human knowledge must be constantly 

 renewed, — if the monuments of human genius and 

 wisdom cannot be transmitted to posterity." The 

 very name of the locust calls up ideas of desolation 

 and famine. " The land is as the garden of Eden 

 before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." 

 From this awful pest we are in this country happily 

 free, but we are exposed to the attacks of many 

 others, which, at times, are scarcely less formidable. 

 The turnip fly and the wire-worm have often ren- 



Turnip Fly. 



dered vain the hopes and the labours of the farmer. 

 Crops of grain have been destroyed, fruit trees 

 blighted, and plantations overthrown, by other tribes 

 of these Lilliputian devastators. One of the Aphi- 

 des appears occasionally in such multitudes, that 

 Thomson has thus introduced it into his description 

 of the phenomena of spring : — 



" For oft, engender'd by the hazy North, 

 MjTiads on myriads, insect armies warp 



