very troublesome to the housewife, bv getting into 

 the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the bacon while 

 it is drying: these eggs produce maggots called 

 jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best 

 parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make 

 great waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the 

 Musca putris of Linnasus : it is to be seen in the sum- 

 mer in farm-kitchens, on the bacon-racks and about 

 the mantelpieces, and on the ceilings. 



The insect that infests turnips and many crops in 

 the garden (destroying often whole fields while in 

 their seedling leaves) is an animal that wants to be 

 better known. The country people here call it the 

 turnip-fly and black dolphin ; but I know it to be one 

 of the colcoptcra ; the Clirysovicla olcracca sanato- 

 ria, femoribus posticis crassissimis " — '' the vaulting 

 clirysonicla, with the back part of the thighs verv 

 thick." In very hot summers thev abound to an 

 amazing degree, and, as vou walk in a field or in a 

 garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on 

 the leaves of the turnips or cabbages. 



There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every 

 ploughboy, which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus,^ 

 is also passed over bv late writers, and that is the 

 airvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in 

 his " Physico-Theology," p. 250: an insect worthy of 



* This is a mistake on White's part : the Horse Bot-fly, Gasterophilus 

 eqtii, Leach, is described by Linnseus under the name of GLstnis bovis, 



163 



