INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 193 



rant of such weighty authority ; for the insect which our 

 great naturalist has arraigned as the author of such de- 

 vastation is scarcely guilty, if it be at all a culprit, in the 

 degree here alleged against it. As it is very numerous 

 early in the year, it may perhaps discolour the vernal 

 blossoms, but its mouth is furnished with no instrument 

 to enable it to devour them. 



In our stoves and green-houses the Aphides often reign 

 triumphant ; for, if they be not discovered and destroyed 

 when their numbers are small, their increase becomes 

 so rapid and their attack so indiscriminate, that every 

 plant is covered and contaminated by them, beauty be- 

 ing converted into deformity, and objects before the most 

 attractive now exciting only nausea and disgust. The 

 Coccus (C. Hesperidum, L.) also, which looks like an 

 inanimate scale upon the bark, does considerable injury 

 to the two prime ornaments of our conservatories, the 

 orange and the myrtle ; drawing off the sap by its pec- 

 toral rostrum, and thus depriving the plant of a portion 

 of its nutriment, at the same time that it causes unplea- 

 sant sensations in the beholder from its resemblance to 

 the pustule of some cutaneous disease. 



I must next conduct you from the garden into the or* 

 chard and fruitery ; and here you will find the same ene- 

 mies still more busy and successful in their attempts to 

 do us hurt. — The strawberry, which is the earliest and 

 at the same time most grateful of our fruits, enjoys also 

 the privilege of being almost exempt from insect injury. 

 A jumping weevil [Curculio Fr agar ice, F.) is said by Fa- 

 bricius to inhabit this plant; but as the same species is 

 abundant in this country upon the beech, the beauty of 

 which it materially injures by the numberless holes with 



VOL. I. ° 



