xxxii. 320; and also for August 1811; and Sir Joseph Banks in the

_Horticultural Society's Transactions_, ii. 162. Those Aphides that transpire a cottony excretion are now considered as belonging to a distinct genus, under the name of _Myzoxyla_.

[344] M. de la Hire in Reaum. ii. 478.

[345] Dr. Smith Barton's Letter in _Philos. Magaz._ xxii. 210. William Davy, Esq. American Consul of the Port of Hull, long resident in the United States, informed me that though he had abundance of peaches at his country-house, German Town near Philadelphia, he could never succeed with the nectarine, the fruit constantly falling off perforated by the grub of some insect.

[346] _Descr. of the I. of St. Helena_, 147.

[347] A mode of destroying this hurtful insect is given in a Number of that useful and interesting work, the _Gardener's Magazine_, just quoted.

[348] Reaum. ii. 505.

[349] Ibid. ii. 507. and Hasselquist's _Travels in the Levant_, 428.

[350] That is "High and Low," Judges ix. 13.

[351] Sturm _Deutschlands Fauna_, i. 5.

[352] Latreille, _Hist. Nat._ xi. 66. 331.

[353] Host in Jacquin. _Collect._ iii. 297.

[354] Pallas's _Travels in S. Russia_, ii. 241.

[355] Jacquin. _Collect._ ii. 97.

[356] Deut. xxviii. 39.

[357] _Travels_, ii. 6.

[358] Collinson in _Philos. Trans._ liv. x. 65.

[359] Rösel, I. ii. 15.

[360] Reaum. ii. 122.

[361] Mouffet, 160.

[362] _Philos. Trans._ xix. 741.

[363] Reaum. i. 387. These larvæ were so extremely numerous in 1826 on the limes of the _Allée Verte_ at Brussels, that many of the trees of that noble avenue, though of great age, were nearly deprived of their leaves, and afforded little of the shade which the unusual heat of the summer so urgently required. The moths which in autumn proceeded from them, when in motion towards night, swarmed like bees, and subsequently on the trunk of every tree might be seen scores of females depositing their down-covered patch of eggs. In the _Park_ they were also very abundant; and it may be safely asserted that if one half of the eggs deposited were to be hatched, in 1827 scarcely a leaf would remain in either of these favourite places of public resort. Happily, however, this calamity seems likely to be prevented. Of the vast number of patches of eggs which I saw on almost every tree in the park about the end of September, I could two months afterwards to my no small surprise, discover scarcely one, though the singularity of the fact made me examine closely. For their disappearance I have no doubt the inhabitants of Brussels are indebted to the tit-mouse (_Parus_), the tree-creeper (_Certhia familiaris_), and other small birds known to derive part of their food from the eggs of insects, and which abound in the park, where they may be often seen running up and down the trunks of the trees, at once providing their own food and rendering a service to man, which all his powers would be inadequate completely to effect.

Reaumur (ii. 106) in certain seasons found these patches of eggs so numerous, that in the _Bois de Boulogne_ there was scarcely an oak, the under side of the branches of which were not covered by them for an extent of seven or eight feet. He informs us that the eggs are not hatched till the following spring.

[364] _Wiener Verzeich._ 8vo. 75.

[365] Curtis _Brit. Ent._ _t_. 117.

[366] De Geer, ii. 452.

[367] Kalm's _Travels_, ii. 7.

[368] The same intelligent gentleman related to me, that a person having taken some land at Bahia in the Brazils, he was compelled by these ants, which were so numerous as to render every effort to destroy them ineffectual, to relinquish the occupation of it. Their nests were excavated to the astonishing depth of fourteen feet. Merian _Insect. Sur._ 18. Smeathman on _Termites, Phil. Trans._ lxxi. 39. note 35.

[369] Stedman, ii. 142.

[370] _Hist. Nat._ l. xi. c. 12.

[371] Curtis _Brit. Ent._ t. 60.

[372] Lewin in _Linn. Trans._ iii. 1.--Curtis in do. i. 86.

[373] Curtis _Brit. Ent._ _t._ 104.

[374] MacLeay in _Edinburgh Philos. Journ._ n. xxi. 123. Curtis _Brit. Ent._ _t._ 43.

[375] Wilhelm's _Recreations from Nat. Hist._ quoted by Latreille _Hist. Nat._ xi. 194.

[376] Reaum. ii. 502.