508 
Observations on the various Insects 
the parasitic Ephedrus (fig. 21), in whose larva the female Cera- 
phron deposits an egg, and thus the maggot of the destroyer is 
punished with death in its turn ! Here we see a countercheck is 
provided to prevent the too great multiplication of tlie legitimate 
guardian, and tlius indirectly the Ceraphron assists in preventing 
the extinction of the plant-lice. 
There is a little apterous Cimex of a bright scarlet colour, which 
is frequently very abundant in corn-fields, and appears to me to be 
the larva only of a species of bug. I expect it lives upon the 
Aphides, or some other of the injurious insects, as in all probability 
it is carnivorous; but I am at present ignorant of its economy. It 
is this insect, I apprehend, which Somerville alludes to.* He 
supposes the Blight, called hungry pickles by dealers, to be attri- 
butable to insects ; but whether the shrivelled appearance of the 
grain and the empty husks of the wheat, in very wet seasons, be 
caused by them or by the presence of the blight, named by Dick- 
son Uredo fnmenti, I am unable to decide; it is clear, however, 
that Somerville has confounded two distinct insects, as we shall see 
by his statement. He says it strikingly resembles a lou.se, being 
of a bright red colour, soft and tender; it then assumes a dirty 
black tint, becomes stationary, and continues so till it dies, when it 
is hard.-j- In 1782, when the crop was very late, and the season 
very wet and cold throughout, the wheat crop, he says, almost 
entirely failed from the depredations of this insect, and it has 
always been in such seasons that it has been deficient. When the 
crops have been early they have been least affected, and the plant 
has attained sufficient vigour before these insects appear, to resist 
their influence, and if it be the delicate rostrum of the larva that 
causes the mischief, it would not penetrate the hardened stem, 
husks, &c. ; and, lie adds, on such they seemed to die of hunger, 
or remove from them. After the grain has passed the milky slate 
it is sale from their attacks. Such mischief has always beeh done 
to crops not perfectly covered after sowing, or when the seed is very 
near the surlace, while such as are deposited at a greater depth 
almost wholly escape. | From the errors already pointed out it is 
impossible to draw any correct conclusions from the foregoing 
observations ; it is only from the most accurate data that we can 
hope to derive beneficial results. 
When we found the Aphides in August, three other insects were 
flying over and alighting upon the wheat. I shall allude to two 
of them briefly in order to direct attention to their economy. One 
* Dickson's Practical Agriculture, vol. i. p. 556. 
t This is no doubt the punctured Aphis (fig. 20. b) which he has con- 
founded with the scarlet bug. 
X Vide Dickson's Practical Agric, vol. i. p. 55G. 
