68 SUPPLEMENT ON 



tettigonice gallinsectcE, puceroiis, &c. There are some 

 which live on excrescences of plants and trees named galls, 

 and subsist on these galls. Such are the cynips, &c. 



For other insects, all these kinds of food seem too gross ; 

 they require an aliment of a sweeter and more delicate de- 

 scription, which they find on flowers. The glands of many 

 flowers furnish this honeyed kind of liquid, which modern 

 botanists have decorated with the name of nectar. Every 

 one knows that of this nectar the bees compose the substance 

 of honey, after it has undergone a final preparation in their 

 bodies. Ants seek with avidity the saccharine liquid which 

 is ejected by the pucerons, through two peculiar apertures in 

 the abdomen. 



Fruits of all descriptions constitute the food of other 

 races. The destruction occasioned by their larvae in our 

 orchard and garden fruits, is rather too well known. A 

 species of weevil lives in nuts. More precious fruits, such as 

 olives, and also different grains, serve as aliments to caterpil- 

 lars and larvae of different species. Green peas, the seeds of 

 thistle and burdock, beans, acorns, and chestnuts, and an im- 

 mense variety of other grains, serve as food for those little 

 animals. 



The insects which feed upon the different species of corn, 

 we know pretty well, to our cost. Many commit great ra- 

 vages in our barns and store-houses. Such are the calan- 

 dra granaria, hrucMis granarms^ and two species of tinea 

 {granella and hordei). The larvae of melolonthae attack 

 plants after another fashion. They gnaw the roots, and thus 

 cause them to perish when they are young. Those of some 

 cecydomyicE and oseines, live in the interior of the stems of 

 young cereal plants, principally of barley, and often thus de- 

 stroy the hopes of agriculture. The larvae of many insects, 

 and principally those of the coleoptera of the family of capri- 



