HARVEST MITE. 
95 
analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles in 
aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet. 
For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for 
these birds in Andalusia ; and now he writes me word that, for 
the first time, he saw one dead in the market on the third of 
September. 
When the cedicnemus flies it stretches out its legs straight be- 
hind, like a heron. 
I am, Sic. ^ 
LETTER XXXIV. To T. PENNANT, Esa. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, March 30, 1771- 
There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, which 
is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer, 
getting into people^s skins, especially those of women and child- 
ren, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This animal 
(which we call an harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discernible 
to the naked eye ; of a bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of 
Acarus. They are to be met with in gardens on kidney-beans, 
or any legumens ; but prevail only in the hot months of summer. 
Warreners, as some have assured me, are much infested by 
them on chalky downs ; where these insects swarm sometimes 
to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to give them 
a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into 
fevers.* 
There is a small long shining fly in these parts very trouble- 
some to the housewife, by 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 
Linnaeus -.f it is to be seen in the summer in farm-kitchens on 
the bacon-racks and about the mantle-pieces, 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 
* Harvest mite {acarus autumnalis) i a most tormenting insect, but which is nevertheless pro- 
perly a vegetable feeder. — Ed. 
t Supposed to be the common cheese-hopper Ay (piophila casei of entomologists), the larva of which 
is well known as the maggots which are found in cheese, while the perfect insect must be equally 
familiar to most persons as the very small black flies which are often seen on windows. — En. 
