INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 201 



greater injury to the trees a .— A Coccus, as it should 

 seem from the description, imported about thirty years 

 ago from the Mauritius, or else with the Constantia vine 

 from the Cape of Good Hope, has destroyed nearly 

 nine-tenths of the peach trees in the Island of St. Helena, 

 where formerly they were so abundant, that, as in North 

 America, the swine were fed with them. Various means 

 have been employed to destroy this plague, but hitherto 

 without success b . — The imperial pine-apple, the glory 

 of our stoves, and the most esteemed of the gifts of Po- 

 mona, cannot, however precious, be defended from the 

 injuries of a singular species of mite, the red Spider of 

 gardeners, (Acarus telarius, L.,) which covers them, and 

 other stove plants, with a most delicate but at the same 

 time very pernicious web. — The olive tree, so valuable 

 to the inhabitants of the warmer regions of Europe, often 

 nourishes in its berries the destructive maggot of a fly 

 (Oscinis Olete, Latr.) ; and the caterpillar of a little moth 

 [Tinea Oleella, F.), which preys upon the kernel of the 

 nucleus, occasions them to fall before they are ripe.— 

 Every one who eats nuts knows that they are very often 

 inhabited by a small white grub ; this is the offspring of 

 a weevil (Curculio Nucum, L.) remarkable for its long 

 and slender rostrum, with which it perforates the shell 

 when young and soft, and deposits an egg in the orifice. 

 — -In France it sometimes happens, when the chesnuts 



a Dr. Smith Barton's Letter in Philos. Magaz. xxii. 210. William 

 Davy, Esq. American Consul of the Port of Hull, long resident in 

 the United States, informed me that though he had abundance of 

 peaches at his country-house, German Town near Philadelphia, he 

 could never succeed with the nectarine, the fruit constantly falling 

 off perforated by the grub of some insect. 



b Descr. of the I. of St. Helena, 147. 



