90 N A T U R A L H I S T O R Y
and railing tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which
we call an harveft bog) is very minute, fcaree difCernible to the
naked eye; of a bright fcarlet colour, and of the genus of Acctrus.
They are to be met with in gardens on kidneybeans, or any
legumens; but prevail only in the hot months- of fummer-
Warreners, as fome have affured me, are much infefted by them
on chalky downs; where thefe infedts fwarm fometimes to fo
infinite a degree as to difcolour their nets, and to give them a
reddilh call, while the men are & bitten as to be thrown into
fevers.
There is a fmall long Ihining fly in thefe parts very troublefome
to the houfewife, by getting into the chimnies, and laying it’s
eggs in the bacon while it is drying: thefe eggs produce
maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and
bcft parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great
wafte. This fly I fufpedt to be a variety of the ntkfda pittris of
Linnaus: it is to be feen in the fummer in farm-kitchens on the
bacon-racks and about the mantle-pieces, and on the ceilings.
The infedt that infefts turnips and many crops in the garden
(deftroying often whole fields while in their feediing 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 coleoptera; ■ the " chryfomela oleracm, faltateria, femoribus
“ poflicis crajjijjimis.” In very hot fummers 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 Oeftrus, known in thefe parts to every plough-boy;
which, becaufe it is omitted by Linnaus, is alfo palled ovet by
late writers; and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned
by
O F S E L B O R N E . 91
by Derham in his Phyfico-theology, p. 250: an infedt worthy of
remark for depofiting it’s eggs as it flies in fo dextrous a manner .
on the Angle hairs of the legs and flanks of grafs-horfes. But ^
then Derham is miffaken wheii he advances that this Oeflrus is the
parent of that wonderful ftar-tailed maggot which he mentions
afterwards ; for more modern entOmologifts have difcovered that
Angular produdtion to be derived from the egg, or the mufca
■ chamdleon fee Geoffroy., t. 17, f. 4.
A full hiftory of noxious infects hurtful in the field, garden,
and houfe, fuggefting all the known and likely means of deftroying
them, would -be allowed by the public to be a molt ufeful and
important work. What knowledge there is of this fort lies
fcattered, and wants to be collecl ed ; great improvements would
foon follow of courfe. A knowledge of thq: properties,
ceconomy, propagation, and in fbort of the life and converfation
o f thefe animals, is a neceflary ftep to lead os to fome method of
preventing their depredations.
As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology
more than fome neat plates that fhould well exprefs the generic
diJlinBions o f infedts according to Linnceus; for I am well affured
that many people would ftudy infedts, could they fet out with a
more adequate notion of thofe diftindtions than can be conveyed
at firft by words alone.