1865.] 



Buckman on the Depredations of Insects. 



429 



the rock is a wonderful natural filter. Eeceiving as it does on its sur- 

 face water from various sources, and charged with impurities of various 

 kinds, it imbibes a portion, allows it to percolate downwards in a slow 

 and gradual descent, every instant extracting some noxious particle, 

 till the liquid is freed from every substance injurious to human life, 

 and is returned to us limpid as the waters of a brook which gurgles 

 along the rugged bed of a Highland glen. 



THE DEPBEDATIONS OF INSECTS AND THE 

 PEOTECTIVE VALUE OP SMALL BIRDS. 



By Prof. James Buckman, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



The readers of this Journal are well aware that a doltish antipathy to 

 small birds has for a long time prompted a crusade against those use- 

 ful little creatures, and with a view to expose the senseless nature of 

 these proceedings as well as to give to the uninitiated reader some 

 insight into the character of the plague which is thereby enabled to 

 spread unopposed, I propose in the following brief observations, to 

 treat of one particular insect enemy, whose devastations have recently 

 forced themselves in an unpleasant manner upon my notice ; I mean 

 that commonly known as the Striped Pea Weevil. 



Both in my garden and in the field I have of late lost crops of 

 peas, and in some cases the loss has been rendered more mortifying, 

 inasmuch as I had selected choice seeds and devoted great care to the 

 cultivation of early plants. In the case of the garden crop, my gar- 

 dener had unhesitatingly attributed the 

 destruction to " sparrers," whilst the 

 cause assigned for the ruined appearance 

 of the plant in the field was " slugs." 

 The real cause was, however, the little 

 insect which I am about to describe, 

 and which, on the occasion to be referred 

 to, I found flying about in such num- 

 bers, that they became entangled in my 

 whiskers, and thus gave unmistakable 

 evidence of the wholesale destruction 

 which they must inevitably cause. 



If we look at the leaf of the young 

 pea we shall find it to consist of two 

 entire leaflets, that is, without divisions at 

 the margin — " leaf bifoliate, leaflets en- 

 tire ; " and which is terminated by a ten- 

 dril which represents other leaflets di- 

 verted to the purposes of climbing. 



Now in the injured leaves we have the appearance of pieces having 

 been bitten out around the margin : this is either unobserved, or if 

 noticed, it is thought by some to be the nature of the leaf, while of those 



Fig. 1. — Entire Leaflets of an unin- 

 jured Pea-plant. 



