19* IKMEECT INJURIES CAUSED EY INSECTS. 



which it pierces the leaves, and has I believe never been 

 taken upon the strawberry, it seems probable that Sraidt's 

 specimens might have fallen upon the latter from that 

 tree a . The only insect I have observed feeding upon 

 this fruit is the ant, and the injury that it does is not 

 material.— The raspberry, the fruit of which arrives later 

 at maturity, has more than one species of these animals 

 for its foes. Its foliage sometimes suffers much from 

 the attack of Melolontha korticola, F., a little beetle re- 

 lated to the cockchafer : when in flower the footstalks of 

 the blossom are occasionally eaten through by a more 

 minute animal of the same order, Byturus tomentosus, 

 Latr., which I once saw prove fatal to a whole crop ; and 

 bees frequently anticipate us, and by sucking the fruit 

 with their proboscis spoil it for the table. — Gooseberries 

 and currants, those agreeable and useful fruits, a com- 

 mon object of cultivation both to poor and rich, have 

 their share of enemies in this class. The all-attacking 

 Aphides do not pass over them, and the former espe- 

 cially are sometimes greatly injured by them; their ex- 

 crement falling upon the berries renders them clammy 

 and disgusting, and they soon turn quite black from it. 

 In July 1812 I saw a currant-bush miserably ravaged 

 by a species of Coccus, very much resembling the Coc- 

 cus of the vine. The eggs were of a beautiful pink, and 

 enveloped in a large mass of cotton-like web, which 



a This kind of misnomer frequently occurs in entomological au- 

 thors.— Thus, for instance, the Curculio Alliance of Linne feeds upon 

 the hawthorn, and Curculio LapatMupon the willow (Curtis in Linn. 

 Tram. i. 86.) ; but as Alliaria is common in hawthorn hedges, and 

 docks often grow under willows, the mistake in question easily hap- 

 pened : when, however, such mistakes are discovered, the Trivial 

 Name ought certainly to be altered* 



