%%U OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 



without wings. These are mysteries which I leave you 

 entomologists to explain. In May, a fly lays a lot of eggs; 

 these eggs hatch and become blights; these blights are 

 viviparous, and that without the usual union of sexes, and so 

 are their children and grandchildren, — the number of births 

 depending solely on the quantity and quality of their food : at 

 last, as winter approaches, the whole generation, or series of 

 generations, assumes wings, which the parents did not possess, 

 undergoes frequently a total change in colour, and in the 

 spring, instead of being viviparous, lays eggs. 



To this singular tribe belongs the hop-fly, an insect which 

 has more rule over the pockets and tempers of mankind than 

 any other ; its abundance or scarcity being the almost only 

 criterion of a scarcity or abundance in the crops of hops: and 

 of every article of merchandize the hop is consequently the 

 most liable to variation in price. Owing to the interest taken 

 in the crop of hops, much more close attention has been paid 

 to the hop-fly than to any other insect ; and you find men 

 conversant in its habits, who would blush if you were to 

 suppose them possessed of enough natural history to know the 

 name of the commonest beetle or even bird ; but let me assure 

 these, that there is nothing derogatory to their manhood, their 

 common sense, or their dignity, in knowing something of the 

 works of nature ; I never met with an individual who was the 

 worse man for it. I don't myself go the length of some of 

 your contributors, who measure the joints of an insect's ears, 

 as Professor Rennie, I see by your Magazine, has called 

 them. But, perhaps, even this is necessary to acquire an 

 accurate knowledge of each kind. 



The hop counties are Kent, Sussex, Surrey,' Worcester, and 

 Hereford. The produce of these are termed, on the market, 

 Kent, Sussex, Farnham, and Worcester hops. The Farn- 

 ham are invariably the highest priced, and the Sussex the 

 lowest. The Worcester hops never come on the London 

 market, and have a price of their own, which is not much 

 influenced by the general price, as no hops are ever, or very 

 rarely indeed, introduced to supply a deficiency of the 



" I sliould judge, from the asinine and blundering stupidity ot Professor 

 Rennie's compilations, that he is peculiarly elongate in this organ ; and so, 

 from the similarity of his own ears to antennae, infers a corresponding use in the 

 two different kinds of organs. — Rusticus. 



