INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS, 173 



gle grain; but as one grain only is to be the portion of one 

 larva, they disperse when hatched, each selecting one for 

 itself, which it enters from without at a place more tender 

 than the rest; — and this single grain furnishes a sufficient 

 supply of food to support the caterpillar till it is ready to 

 assume the pupa. Concealed within this contracted ha- 

 bitation, the little animal does nothing that may betray it 

 to the watchful eye of man, not even ejecting its excre- 

 ments from its habitation; so that there may be millions 

 within a heap of corn, where you would not suspect there 

 was one a . 



I have not observed that oats suffer from insects, except 

 from the universal subterranean destroyer of the grasses, 

 the wire-worm, of which I shall give you a more full ac- 

 count hereafter; and occasionally from an Aphis. The only 

 important grain that now remains unnoticed is the maize or 

 Indian corn. Besides the chintz-bug-fly, a little beetle b 

 (Pkaleria cornuta, Latr.) appears to devour it; and it has 

 probably other unrecorded enemies. The Guinea corn 

 of America (Holcus bicolor), as well as other kinds of grain, 

 is, according to Abbott, often much injured by the larva of 

 a moth (Noctua frugiperda, Smith), which feeds upon the 

 main shoot c . 



Next to grain pulse is useful to us both when cultivated 

 in our gardens and in our fields. Peas and beans, which 

 form so material a part of the produce of the farm, are ex- 

 posed to the attack of a numerous host of insect depre- 

 dators ; indeed the fomer, on account of their ravages, is 

 one of the most uncertain of our crops. The animals 



a Act. StocM. 1750. 128. Reaumur, ii. 480, &c. 



b This insect was taken in maize by Mr. Sparshall of Norwich. 



c Smith's Abbott's Insects of Georgia, 191. 



