XL!iI.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
125 
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 linngeus : it is to be seen in the summer 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 wdiile 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 coleoptcra ; the " Chrysomela olcracea saltatoria, femoribus 
posticis crassissimis " — "the vaulting clirijsomda, with the back 
part of the thighs very thick." In very hot summers they 
abound to an amazing degree, and, as you 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 
by late writers, and that is the curvicaucla of old Moufet, 
mentioned by Derham in his Physico-Theology," p. 250 : an 
insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so 
dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of 
grass-horses. But then Derham is mistaken when he advances 
that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star- tailed 
maggot which he mentions afterwards ; for more modern ento- 
mologists have discovered that singular production to be derived 
from the egg of the Mitsca chomicehon. ^ 
A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, 
and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of de- 
stroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most 
useful and important work. What knowledge there is of this 
sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improvements 
would soon follow of course. A knowledge of the properties, 
economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and conversation 
of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method 
of preventing their depredations. 
1 This is a mistake on White's part : the Horse Bot-fly, Gastero;philus equi^ 
Leach, is described by Linnsens under tlie name of CEstrus hovis. 
^ Stratioriiys cham(deon, De Geer. 
