INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 171 



tearing the pollen, prevent the impregnation of the grain, 

 and so in some seasons destroy the twentieth part of the 

 crop a . 



One would think, when laid up in the barn or in the 

 granary, that wheat would be secure from injury ; but 

 even there the weevil (Calandra granaria, F.), in its imago 

 as well as in its larva state, devours it ; and sometimes this 

 pest becomes so infinitely numerous, that a sensible man, 

 engaged in the brewing trade, once told me, speaking per- 

 haps rather hyperbolically, that they collected and destroy- 

 ed them by bushels ; and no wonder, for a single pair of 

 these destroyers may produce in one year above 6000 de- 

 scendants. — There are three other insects that attack the 

 stored wheat, which are more injurious to it than even the 

 weevil. One is a minute species of moth, ( Tinea granella, 

 F.,) happily not much if at all known in this country; of 

 which Leeuwenhoek has given us a full history under the 

 name of the wolf. Another is a species of the same genus, 

 at present not named, which, as we are informed by Du 

 Hamel, at one time committed dreadful ravages in the 

 province of Angoumois in France. The third is Trogosita 

 caraboides, F., a kind of beetle, the grub of which called 

 Cadelky Olivier tells us, did more damage to the housed 

 grain in the southern provinces of France than either the 

 weevil or the wolf b . — Mere I may just mention a few 

 other insects which devour grains that are the food of man, 

 concerning which I have collected no other facts. The 

 rice- weevil {Calandra Oryzce, F.) is very injurious to the 

 useful grain after which it is named, as is likewise another 



a Tipula Tritici, K.,belonging to Latreille's genus Cecidomt/ia. Mar- 

 sham and Kirby in Linn. Trans, iii. 242-5. iv. 225-39. v. 96-110. 

 b Oliv. ii. n. 19. 3-4. 



