168 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



by attacking the roots, do a still greater injury to the trees. ^ 

 — 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. He- 

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

 America, the swine were fed with their fruit. Various means 

 have been employed to destroy this plague, but hitherto with- 

 out success.^ — The imperial pine-apple, the glory of our 

 stoves, and the most esteemed of the gifts of Pomona, cannot 

 however precious, be defended from the injuries of a singular 

 species of mite, before mentioned, the red Spider of gardeners, 

 {Erytlir(Bus telarius), which covers it, and other stove plants, 

 with a most delicate, but at the same time very pernicious, 

 Aveb ; and the Coccus hromelice is often as great a pest, preying 

 upon the leaves and young fruit beneath a white downy se- 

 cretion.^ — 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 {JDacus olecB) ; and the cater- 

 pillar of a little moth ( Tinea oleella), which preys upon the 

 kernel of the nucleus, occasions them to fall before they are 

 ripe. The larvae of two beetles, Hylesinus oleiperda and 

 Phloiotribus olece, attack the bark and alburnum of the young 

 branches ; another beetle, Otiorhynchus meridionalis Schon., 

 devours the young shoots and leaves; and the sap is injuriously 

 abstracted by Coccus olece, and by Psylla olece Fons.^, as well 

 as by Thrips physapus, which in Tuscany has of late years 

 threatened the olive trees of some districts with destruction, 

 by attacking the young leaves and buds.^ • — Every one who 

 eats nuts knows that they are very often inhabited by a small 

 white grub; this is the offspring of a weevil {Balaninus nucum), 

 remarkable for its long and slender rostrum, with which it 



1 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. 



2 Bescr. of the I. of St. Helena, 147. 



3 Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. Ixiv, ; and see also Westwood's Ohs. i. 206. 



4 M. Boyer de Fonscolombe in Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, ix. 101. 

 ^ Passerini, Alcuni Notizie, &c. 



