184 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



mies, the sugar-cane has also its Aphis, which sometimes 

 destroys the whole crop a ; and according to Humboldt 

 and Bonpland the larva of Elater noctilucus feeds in it b . 



Two other vegetable productions of the New World, 

 cotton and tobacco, which are also valuable articles of 

 commerce, receive great injury from the depredations of 

 insects. M'Kinnen, in his Tour through the West In- 

 dies, states that in 1788 and 1794 two-thirds of the crop 

 of cotton in Crooked Island, one of the Bahamas, was 

 destroyed by the chenille (probably a lepidopterous lar- 

 va) ; and the red bug, an insect equally noxious, stained 

 it so much in some places as to render it of little or no 

 value. Browne relates that in Jamaica a bug destroys 

 whole fields of this plant, and the caterpillar of the beau- 

 tiful Papilio Citpido, L. also feeds upon it c . That of 

 the Sphinx Carolina, L. is the great pest of Tobacco ; 

 and it is attacked likewise by the larva of Phalcena 

 Rhcxia:, Smith d , and by other insects of the names and 

 kind of which I am ignorant. 



Roots are another important object of agriculture, 

 which, however, as to many of them, they may seem to 

 be defended by the earth that covers them, do not es- 

 cape the attack of insect enemies. — The carrot, which 

 forms a valuable part of the crop of the sand-land farms 

 in Suffolk, is often very much injured, as is also the 

 parsnip, by a small centipede (S. electrica, L.), and an- 

 other polypod (Polydesmus complanatus, Latr.), which 

 eat into various labyrinths the upper part of their roots ; 



a Browne's Civil and Nat. Hist, of Jamaica, iSO. 



b Essaisurla Geographic des Plantes, 136. 



c M'Kinnen, 1^1. Browne ubi supr. Merian, Ins. Sur. 10; 



6 Smith's Abbott's Insects of Georgia, 191K 



