INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. I5I 



of Germany, stripped the fruit-trees in general of their foliage.^ In 

 France also, in 1731 and 1732, that of a moth, which seems related to 

 the brown-tail moth (^Porthesia aurijlua), whose history has been given 

 by the late Mr. Curtis, was so numerous as to occasion a general alarm. 

 The oaks, elms, and white-thorn hedges looked as if some burning wind 

 had passed over them and dried up their leaves ; for, the insect devouring 

 only one surface of them, that which is left becomes brown and dry. 

 They also laid waste the fruit-trees, and even devoured the fruit ; so that 

 the parliament published an edict to compel people to collect and destroy 

 them; but this would in a great measure have been ineffectual, had not 

 some cold rains fallen, which so completely annihilated them, that it was 

 difficult to meet with a single individual.^ In Germany, according to M. 

 Schmidberger, the larvae of the following moths, Porthesia chrysorrhaa, 

 Clisiocampa neustria, Hypogymna dispar, Episema cceruleocephala, Ypono- 

 meuta padella, and especially Cheimatobia brumata, which he calls the 

 most ruinous of the whole, are all more or less injurious to fruit trees 

 generally.^ In the north of France, as we learn from Mr. Westwood, 

 one of these caterpillars, that of the small ermine moth (Yyonomeuta 

 padella) is often so numerous as to defoliate the apple trees by the road 

 sides for miles.'' Three species of beetles also, Rhynchites alliaria, which 

 in the larva state bores into the young shoots, and Nemoicus oblongus and 

 Phyllopertha horticola, which attack the leaves as perfect insects, join 

 their lepidopterous brethren in Germany in a general assault on fruit trees. 

 If we quit the orchard and fruit-garden for a walk in our plantations 

 and groves, we shall still be forced to witness the sad effects of insect 

 devastation ; and when we see, as sometimes happens, the hedges' and trees 

 entirely deprived of their foliage, and ourselves of the shade we love from 

 the fervid beam of the noonday sun ; when the singing birds have deserted 

 them ; and all their music, which has so often enchanted us by its melody, 

 variety, and sweetness, has ceased — we shall be tempted in our hearts to 

 wish the whole insect race was blotted from the page of creation. Nume- 

 rous are the agents employed in this work of destruction. Amongst the 

 beetles, various cockchafers (^Melolontha vulgaris, Amphimalla solstitialis, 

 and Phyllopertha horticola^ in their perfect state act as conspicuous a part 

 in injuring the trees, as their grubs do in destroying the herbage. Besides 

 the leaves of fruit-trees, they devour those of the sycamore, the lime, the 

 beech, the willow, and the elm. They are sometimes, especially the com- 

 mon one, astonishingly numerous. MoufFet relates, (but one would think 

 that there must be some mistake in the date, since they are never so early 

 in their appearance,) that on the 24th of February, 1574, such a number 

 of them fell into the river Severn as to stop the wheels of the water- 

 mills.^ It is also recorded in the Philosophical Transactions, that in 1688 

 they filled the hedges and trees of part of the county of Galway in such 

 infinite numbers, as to cling to each other in clusters like bees when they 

 swarm ; on the wing they darkened the air, and produced a sound like 

 that of distant drums. "When they were feeding, the noise of their jaws 

 might be mistaken for the sawing of timber. Travelers and people abroad 



» Rosel, I. ii. 15. 2 Reaum. ii. 122. 



3 Kollar, on Ins. inj. to Gardeners, &c. 190. — 229. 



< Loudon's Gardener's Mag. Oct. 1837. • Mouffet, 160. 



