INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 143 



many-colored streaks which diversify the blossom of the tulip, by de- 

 vouring its bulbs. ^ — Sedums, and other out-of-door plants in pots, are often 

 greatly injured by having the upper part of their roots gnawed by the 

 larvae of a beetle, Otiorhynckus sulcatus.- — Ray notices another insect 

 mentioned by Ssvammerdam, probably Bibio hortulana, which he calls 

 the deadliest enemy of the flowers of the spring. He accuses it of des- 

 poiling the gardens and fields of every blossom, and so extinguishing the 

 hope of the year.^ But you must not take up a prejudice against an 

 innocent creature, even under the warrant of such weighty authority ; for 

 the insect which our great naturalist has arraigned as the author of such 

 devastation is scarcely guilty, if it be at all a culprit, in the degree here 

 alleged against it. As it is very numerous early in the year, it may per- 

 haps discolor the vernal blossoms, but its mouth is furnished with no instru- 

 ment to enable it to devour them. Lastly, to omit various other enemies 

 of our parterres, as the wire-worm, &:c., I may mention that universal 

 pest, the earwig, against which the florist is obliged to use various pre- 

 cautions to protect his choicest carnations, pinks, and dahlias from its 

 ravages. 



In our stoves and greenhouses, the Aphides often reign triumphant ; 

 for, if they be not discovered and destroyed when their numbers are small, 

 their increase becomes so rapid, and their attack so indiscriminate, that 

 every plant is covered and contaminated by them, beauty being converted 

 into deformity, and objects before the most attractive now exciting only 

 nausea and disgust. The coccus (C Hesperidum) also, which looks like 

 an inanimate scale upon the bark, does considerable injury to the two prime 

 ornaments of our conservatories, the orange and the myrtle ; drawing off 

 the sap by its pectoral rostrum, and thus depriving the plant of a portion 

 of its nutriment, at the same time that it causes unpleasant sensations in 

 the beholder from its resemblance to the pustule of some cutaneous disease. 

 Similar injury is done by the mealy-bug (^Coccus Adonidum L.) to many 

 soft-leaved dicotyledonous plants, such as the coffee tree, Justicia, Stc, as 

 well as to Musa, Canna, he. ; and various species of scale insects, sepa- 

 rated from Coccus by Bouche under the names of Aspidiotus Nerii, Rosce, 

 fcc, attack the oleanders, roses, bays, cactuses, &tc. ; while the red spider 

 (Erythraus telarius), spinning its web over the under surface of the leaves, 

 draws out their juices with its rostrum, and thus enfeebles, and, if unmo- 

 lested, in the end, destroys them.'* 



I must next conduct you from the garden into the orchard and fruitery ; 

 and here you will find the same enemies still more busy and successful in 

 their attemps to do us hurt. The strawberry, which is the earliest and at 

 the same time most grateful of our fruits, enjoys also the privilege of 

 being almost exempt from insect injury. A jumping weevil (^Orchestes 

 Fragarice) is said by Fabricius to inhabit this plant ; but as the same 

 species is abundant in this country upon the beech, the beauty of which 

 it materially injures by the numberless holes which it pierces in the leaves, 

 and has, I believe, never been taken upon the strawberry, it seems proba- 

 ble that Smidt's specimens might have fallen upon the latter from that 



' Reaum. iv. 499. 



* Westwood in Loudon's Gardener's Mag. 1837. No. 85. 

 ^ Rai, Hist. Ins. Prolegom. xi. 



* Kollar on Ins. inj. to Gardeners^ &c, 178 — 182. 



