OF PLANTS. 



Introd. to EntomoL i. p. 181.) ^Fhe Carabus gibbus, also, 

 not only in its larva state, but as a perfect insect, destroys 

 the wheat crops throughout great tracts of country ; (Ger- 

 inar*'s Magazine, i.) There is a Staphylinus, the larva of 

 which insinuates itself into the grain of wheat, while it is 

 springing, and kills it; (Waiford, in Linn. Transact, ix. 

 p. 156.) The Bostrychus typographus lives entirely upon the 

 inner-bark of Pines, and so hollows it out into winding cavi- 

 ties, that six and thirty years ago, a miUion and a half of 

 the Pinus picea and Pinus sylvestris, upon the Hartz alone, fell 

 a sacrifice to it ; (Trebra, in Schriften der Berlin Gesellschaft 

 natur-forschender Freunde, b. iv. t. 4 ) The Anobium tes~ 

 sellatum, which is also called the Death-watch, devours both 

 decayed and living wood. Two Attelabi, also, may be men- 

 tioned, of which the one, A. Bacchus, is destructive to Vines ; 

 the other, A. pomorum, to the buds of Apple-trees. To the 

 same order belongs the Buprestis viridis, the larva of which 

 gnaws the alburnum of the red Beech, and produces the 

 same kind of winding excavations, as the Bostrychus typogra- 

 phits ; and, lastly, there is the well known Earth-flea {Hal- 

 tica oleracea^, which, during dry seasons, is so destructive to 

 Greens, particularly to plants with cruciform blossoms, as 

 the Rape, and Cabbage species. The Crambus Brassica, 

 the larva of which lays waste also the fields of Caraway and 

 Coriander, is the greatest enemy to the Rape (Brassica ole- 

 racea laciniata.) 



¥26. 



The second family of destructive insects is the Hemip- 

 tera, among which the leaf-lice, or aphides, from their incre- 

 dible fecundity, and endless increase, destroy most of the 

 plants upon which they alight. Almost every plant has its 

 own kind of aphis, and of these many bring forth twenty 

 times in a year. Even under the bark of Apple trees, a very 

 destructive kind had long been found, the Aphis lanigera, 

 which occasioned great devastations, especially in England, 

 (Sir Jos. Banks, in Transact. Horticultural Soc ii. 162.) 

 The want of a free circulation of air is particularly h.vouv^ 



