188 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



limits, I went to a field of fifteen acres, which was sown 

 partly with white and partly with red wheat. In this field I 

 took five stations, one on each side and one in the centre. 

 In each station 1 examined a certain number of ears, grain 

 by grain, without selection. The result was that in thirty 

 ears of white wheat seventy-three grains were destroyed by 

 larvae, which is at a rate of not quite two grains and a half to 

 an ear ; and in twenty ears of red wheat twenty-nine grains 

 were destroyed, which is nearly at the rate of one grain and 

 a half to an ear. Take the whole together, and the pro- 

 portion will be about two grains to an ear, which, I suppose, 

 may be about a twentieth part of the produce." Hence Mr. 

 Kirby infers that the damage to the wheat in the particular 

 instance in question amounted to a twentieth part of the 

 crop, or one bushel of wheat in twenty ; and, inasmuch as 

 his mode of examination was a perfectly fair one, and made 

 " without selection," he would assess the average loss at a 

 twentieth of the crop. Novr, granting that one grain in 

 every twenty is consumed by the grubs in question — an 

 admission which I make simply on the faith of Mr. Kirby's 

 single experiment, and not from any knowledge of the fact 

 — the doubt 1 would raise in this : Whether by abstracting 

 one grain of wheat out of every twenty, or one potato out of 

 every twenty, or a twentieth apple, apricot, pear or plum, 

 while still in a vigorously growing state — and this is the case 

 as stated — whether by such process you really and abso- 

 lutely destroy a twentieth part of the produce either in 

 weight, measure or value, or whether Nature does not by 

 some occult proceeding of her own distribute among the 

 nineteen grains of wheat, or nineteen potatoes, apples, 

 apricots, pears or plums that remain, a large proportion of 

 the nutriment which she had originally designed for that 

 twentieth part that has been abstracted ? The loss does not 

 seem to be an absolute loss, but a loss which Nature has an 

 especial provision of her own for compensating in some 

 degree, if not entirely. I have an especial object in these 

 remarks. The same disease, if I may call it so, has appeared 

 simultaneously in many places, and has created very 

 needless alarm, as it did in 1796. It must be very 

 obvious that the direct tendency of such alarm is to 

 enhance the price of food, and especially that description of 



