74 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 



This animal (which we call an harvest bug) is very minute, scarce 

 discernible to the naked eye ; of a bright scarlet colour, and of 

 the genus of Acarus.^ They are to be met with in gardens on 

 kidney-beans, or any legumens ; but prevail only in the hot 

 months of summer. Warreners, as some have assured me, are 

 much infested by them on chalky downs ; where these insects 

 swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree as to discolour their 

 nets, and to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so 

 bitten as to be thrown into fevers. 



There is a small long shining fly in these parts very trouble- 

 some to the housewife, by getting into the chimnies, and laying 

 it's eggs in the bacon while it is diying : these eggs produce 

 maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and 

 best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great 

 waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the musca putris of 

 Linncmis : it is to be seen in the summer in farm-kitchens on the 

 bacon-racks and about the mantel-pieces, and on the ceilings.^ 



The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden 

 (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is 

 an animal that wants to be better known. The country people 

 here call it the tumip-Jlij and black-dolphin ; but I know it to be 

 one of the coleopiera ; the " chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, fomori- 

 " bus posticis crasdssimis " . In very hot summers they abound to 

 an amazing degree, and, as you walk in a field or in a garden, 

 make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the 

 turnips or cabbages.'' 



There is an Oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy ; 

 which, because it is omitted by Linnceus, is also passed over by 

 late writers, and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned 

 by Der/iam in his Physico-theology, p. 250 : an insect worthy of 

 remark for depositing it's eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner 

 on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses.* But 

 then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this Oestrus 

 is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he 



^ [The harvest-bug is usually an immature acarus, having only six legs ; the 

 young of Tetranychus autumnalis, Shaw.] 



'^ [The bacon-fly is very similar to (perhaps identical with) the cheese-fly (Piophila 

 casei, L.), whose larvae, the well-known "cheese-hoppers," are described by 

 Swammerdam in the Biblia Natures. The bacon-fly has been described hy Hali- 

 day as P. luteata. It is said to be stouter than the cheese-fly, with shorter and 

 thicker legs and yellower wings.] 



' [The turnip-flea beetle {Haltica or Phyllotnta nemorum, L.).] 



* [The horse-bot (Gastrophilus equi, Fab.).] 



