INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 155 



twenty years been almost as extensively cultivated in France 

 for the manufacture of sugar as turnips with us, is much in- 

 jured by a small beetle, a new species of Cryptophagus de- 

 scribed by M. Macquart ( C. Betce), which devours the plants 

 as soon as they appear above ground.^ 



We have wandered long enough about the fields to observe 

 the progress of insect devastation : let us now return home to 

 visit the domains of Flora and Pomona, that we may see 

 whether their subjects are exposed to equal maltreatment. 

 If we begin with the kitchen-garden, we shall find that its 

 various productions, ministering so materially to our daily 

 comfort and enjoyment, almost all suffer more or less from 

 the attack of the animals we are considering. — Thus, the 

 earliest of our table dainties, radishes, are devoured by the mag- 

 got of a fly {Anthomyia Radicnni), assisted by those of a very 

 small beetle (Latridius por Cains'^), and our lettuces by the cater- 

 pillars of several species of moth ; one of which is the beau- 

 tiful tiger-moth (Eiiprepia Caja), another the pot-herb-moth 

 {Mamestra oleraced), a third anonymous, described by Keau- 

 mur, as beginning at the root, eating itself a mansion in the 

 stem, and so destroying the plant before it cabbages.^ And 

 when they are come to their perfection and appear fit for the 

 table, their beauty and delicacy are often marred by the 

 troublesome earwig, which, insinuating itself into them, 

 defiles them with its excrements ; while the seed is often 

 nearly wholly destroyed (as was the case in Sufiblk in 1836 

 and the three following years) by the grubs of a fly {An- 

 thomyia LactuccE Bouche) which live in the involucre, and 

 feed on the seeds and receptacle.^ What more acceptable 

 vegetable in the spring than brocoli ? Yet how dreadfully is 

 its foliage often ravaged in the autumn by numerous hordes 

 of the cabbage-butterfly ! so that, in an extensive garden, you 

 will sometimes see nothing left of the leaves except the veins 



1 Ann. Sc. Nat. xxiii. 94. quoted by Westwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. i. 148. 



2 Kyber in Germar's Mag. der Entom. i. 1. 



3 Keaum. ii. 471. 



4 Curtis in Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 363. 



