34 OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 



horticulturist will tell you, " There is blight in the air to-da)- :" 

 and in a few days or weeks, he will see the web of the lackey, 

 or the yellow tail, or the ermine, on his white- thorn hedge- 

 rows ; or the caterpillars of the deatfis-head hawk moth on his 

 potatoes ; or those of butterflies on his cabbages ; and then he 

 will give you a toss of his wise head, and utter, with a gravity 

 quite in keeping, " I knew there would be a bligJd this year; 

 I saw it coming in the air." Perhaps, however, he may find a 

 good many snails eating his wall-fruit ; or may, perchance, tread 

 on two or three great stag beetles while performing their evening 

 perambulation along his gravelled walks ; and then, he " knew 

 it would be either a blight or a sneg ; but it's more of a sneg 

 this year." Further than this, the horticulturist has not pro- 

 gressed : webs and soft insects are blights; snails and hard 

 insects are snegs. Warm south-east winds produce the first ; 

 cold north-east winds, the last ; and yet the same man would 

 laugh in your face if you were to say seriously, on a cold misty 

 morning, " There will be a rise in the funds to-morrow, I can 

 see it in the air." I maintain that there can hardly be a greater 

 service performed to horti- and agri-culturists, than by pointing- 

 out to them the nature and habits of their insect enemies ; and 

 their laughing at us in the first instance will perhaps be repaid 

 by their thanking us at last. 



Let us consider, separately, some of the insects which bear 

 the name of blight. We will, in the first instance, examine 

 the apple-tree. Cider is an important article of manufacture, 

 as well as consumption, in many of our counties ; and, conse- 

 quently, whatever tends to increase or diminish the supply, 

 ought to be deemed by the grower worth his notice. The 

 apple-tree has many assailants : the principal are the weevil,^ 

 {weevillum pomi ?), the woolly louse or American blight, and 

 the moth. I will describe the first of these, and its mode of 

 proceeding. 



By carefully examining the bark of an apple-tree in the 

 winter, you "wdll occasionally find a pretty little beetle in the 

 cracks, which, directly on being touched, shams dead, and 

 drops on the ground, where you will not, without great diffi- 

 culty, discover it, on account of the great similarity of its 

 colour ; you must, therefore, hunt till you find another. This 



* Anthonomus pomorum. — Ed. 



