INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. I47 



Even in the very commencement of their existence our choicest apple 

 trees are attaciced by insects ; for the young grafts, as 1 am informed by 

 an intelligent friend, Mr. Scales, are frequently destroyed, sometimes many 

 hundreds in one night, in the nurseries about London, by CurcuUo vastator 

 Marsh (^Otiorhynchus nototus), one of the short-snouted weevils ; as are 

 in the neighborhood of Warsaw the grafts of this and other fruit trees by a 

 smaller weevil Poli/drusus (^Nemoicus) oblongus^, which with us eats the 

 leaves of both apple and pear trees. The blossoms, in common with 

 those of the pear and cherry, are attacked by the figure-of-eight moth 

 (^Ejpiscma cceruleocephala) , which Linne denominates the pest of Pomona ; 

 and still more effectually by the grub of a reddish long-snouted weevil 

 (^Anthonomus pomorum), which eating both the blossom and organs of 

 fructification precludes all hope of fruit. If this danger be escaped, and 

 the fruit be set, it is then in Austria often destroyed by Rhynchites Bac- 

 chus, the same splendid weevil which attacks the cherry ; and Reaumur 

 has given us the history of a species of moth common in this country 

 (^Carpocapsa pomonella), the caterpillar of which feeds in the centre of 

 our apples, thus occasioning them to fall ; as does also the larva of one of 

 the saw-flies (Tenthredo testudinea), as observed by Mr. Westwood, and 

 the first instance known of one of this tribe feeding in the interior of 

 fruits.^ 



Our more dainty and delicate fruits, at least such as are usually so ac- 

 counted, the apricot, the peach, and the nectarine, originally of Asiatic 

 origin, are not less subject to the empire of insects than the homelier 

 natives of Europe. Certain Aphides form a convenient and sheltered 

 habitation for themselves, by causing portions of the leaves to rise into 

 hollow red convexities ; in these they reside, and, with their rostrum pump- 

 ing out the sap, in time occasion them to curl up, and thus deform the 

 tree and injure the produce. The fruit is attacked by various other enemies 

 of this class, against which we find it not easy to secure it : wasps, earwigs, 

 flies, wood-lice, and ants, which last communicate to it a disagreeable 

 flavor, all share with us these ambrosial treasures ; the first of them as it 

 were opening the door, by making an incision in the rind, and letting in 

 all the rest. The nucleus of the apricot is also sometimes inhabited by the 

 caterpillar of a moth, which feeding on the kernel causes the fruit to fall 

 prematurely.^ And much injury is done to this tree by the larva of a little 

 moth (^Ditula angustiorana), by devouring the young blossom-buds and 

 tying the young shoots together with its silken thread, so as to stop their 

 growth.* In this country, however, these fruits may be regarded as mere 

 luxuries, and therefore are of slight consequence ; but in North America 

 they constitute an important part of the general produce, at least the peach, 

 serving both as food for swine, and furnishing by distillation a spirit. The 

 ravages committed upon them there by insects are so serious, that premium", 

 have been offered for extirpating them. A species of weevil, perhaps a 

 Rhynchites, enters the fruit when unripe, probably laying its eggs within 

 the stone, and so destroys them. And two kinds of Zygcena, by attacking 



* Ann. Snc. Ent. de France, viii. Bull. viii. 

 ' Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. iii. proc. xxxii. 



^ M. de la Hire in Reaam. ii. 473. 



* Westwood ia Loudon's Gardener^ s Mag. No. 94. Jan. 1838. 



