A Foreign Invasion of England 285 



The enemies of our com crops in particular are 

 many and various. There is tiie wheat -beetle, for 

 example, which ravaj^es the wheat-liekls in two 

 ways at once, the jfruh devouring the growing 

 young leaves, while the perfect winged insect eats 

 up at leisure the grain as it ripens. There are the 

 various cockchafers, which vie with one another 

 in their cruel depredations on th.e standing corn. 

 There are the skip-jacks and wire-worms, and other 

 queerly named beasties, which attack the roots of 

 the plant underground. There is the corn saw-fly, 

 whose larva feeds on the stalk of rye and wlieat, 

 till it finally cuts off tlie whole haulm altogether 

 close to the soil at the bottom. There are th.e 

 midges which lay their eggs in the swelling ear, 

 where the maggots develop and prevent the proper 

 growth of the impregnated grain. There is the 

 gout-fly, which causes a gouty swelling at the 

 joints, and the corn - moth, which c'evours the 

 stored wheat in the granary. There are the red- 

 maggot, and the grain-aphis, and the thrips, and the 

 daddy-longlegs, all of which in various ways prove 

 themselves serious enemies of the agricultural 

 interest. And there are dozens more known only 

 to men of science by dry Latin names, and duly 

 chronicled by the farmer's friend. Miss Ormerod, 

 in many learned and exhaustive monographs. 



But as if these were not enough for our " de- 

 pressed " neighbours, the agriculturists, the last 

 ten years or so have seen England invaded by a 

 foreign foe, either from Germany or America — 

 a foe whose life-history has been made a special 



