124 
PART IV. 
REVIEWS AND EXTRACTS. 
1. — On The Utility of the Knowledge of Nature, by E. 
W. Brayley, Esq. 8vo. 
'1 HE fuUowing Extract, on the Ravages of Insects, wliich has been kindly 
furnislied by the author, appears to be of uncommon interest, to all persons 
connected with Horticulture, and we therefore strongly recommend it to the 
perusal of our roaders. The Work itself, from the enlarged view it takes of 
Nature, promises to be of the greatest utility to the admirers of her wonder- 
lul operations. 
"Almost all timber-eating insects are comprised in three orders ; — viz. Coleo/)- 
f era, Of beetles; Le/)/doj)tera, or moths, butterflies, &c., and Ht/me/Mjtdray ov 
bees, wasps, &c. All these, in their youngest state, after leaving the egg, are 
worms, or hirvse, and it is while they are in this stage of their life that they commit 
the direct injury to the trees, either by gnawing oft' the bark, or by devouring the 
wood. The connnunication of the disease to other trees is periodical ; for when 
the worms or larva;, just mentioned, arrive at their perfect or winged state — be- 
come butterflies, or beetles, or wasps, &c., the mischief r/Z/w/Zj/ committed by them 
is comparatively trifling, and generally results, in fact, not so much from their 
voracity, as to their attempts to extricate themselves, and to arrive at the external 
air; or from their endeavours to commit their eggs to a proper uiilii.s,OY situation, 
and surrounding materials, proper for the vivificatiou and support of the larvte to be 
hatched from them. But as the insects are now winged, and are capable of de- 
positing myriads of eggs, — the germs of so many devouring larva', the disease is 
thus dispersed throughout the neighbourhood of the tree originally infected. 
'' From this general view of the subject, let us proceed to notice some of the 
ravages which insects have conunitted upon timber-trees. 
" The Pine forests of (iermany have at various times, sustained enormous injury 
from the attacks of a small beetle, belonging to the gen\i>i Boa/r/c/iJii, and named 
. by naturalists, the Bostric/nm Ti/pogropki/s, or Prniter Boslrichus, on account of 
a fancied resemblance between the paths which it erodes in the trees, and rows of 
letters. This insect, in its preparatory or larvje state, feeds upon the soft inner 
bark only of the trees; but it attacks this important part in such vast numbers, no 
fewer than eigliUf thousand larvee being sometimes found in one tree, that it is very 
far more noxious than any of those insects which bore into the wood itself; and 
such is its tenacity of life, that though the bark be battered, and the tree plunged 
into water, or exposed ton freezing temperature by being laid upon the ice or 
snow, it remains alive and unhiu't. The leaves of the trees infested by it, first 
become yellow, the trees themselves then die at the top, and soon perish entirely. 
The ravao'es of this insect have long been known in Germany, under the name of 
H^'uriii trochitess, (decay caused by worms;) and in the old liturgies of that couu- 
tiT, the Divine interposition to check its ravages is formally i>esoiight; it being 
