INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 211 



there was great reason to fear for the few fir-trees that 

 were left 3 . 



The seeds of forest- as well as of fruit-trees are doubt- 

 less subject to injuries from the same quarter, but these 

 being more out of the reach of observation, have not been 

 much noticed. Acorns, however, a considerable article 

 with nurserymen, are said to have both a moth and a 

 beetle that prey upon them; and what is remarkable, 

 though sometimes one larva of each is found in the same 

 acorn, yet two of either kind are never to be met with 

 together 5 . The beetle is probably the Curculio Glandium 

 of Mr. Marsham, and is nearly related to the species 

 whose grub inhabits the nut. 



Having now conducted you round and exhibited to 

 you the melancholy proofs of the universal dominion of 

 insects over our vegetable treasures, while growing or 

 endued with the principle of vitality, in their separate 

 departments, — I must next introduce you to a pest worse 

 than all put together, which indiscriminately attacks and 

 destroys every vegetable substance that the earth pro- 

 duces, and which, wherever it prevails, carries famine, 

 pestilence and death in its train. Happily for this country 

 and we cannot be too thankful for the privilege, we know 

 this scourge of nations only by report. The name of 

 Locust, which has been such a sound of horror in other 

 countries, here only suggests an object of interesting in- 

 quiry. But the ravages of locusts are so copious a theme 

 that they merit to be considered in a separate letter. 



I am, &c. 



a Wilhelm's Recreations from Nat. Hist, quoted by Latreille Hist. 

 Nat. xi. 194. b Reaum. ii. 502, 



v 2 



