ROOKS-LAPWINGS.

123

discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots more productive of food? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders, and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.* dandelions, and other plants, drawn out of the ground and scattered about, their roots having been eaten off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the surface. This grub beneath, in the earth, the rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to feed on it, first pulling up the plant which concealed it, and then drawing the larvæ from their holes."

A correspondent, in the Magazine of Natural History, proves that the rook is occasionally a predatory bird. He says, "As I was passing through Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, London, soon after six o'clock this morning, my attention was attracted to a rook flying low, near the walls of some out-buildings, in which were many holes occupied by sparrows' nests. He directed his flight to one of these holes, into which he thrust himself as far as possible. It was evident that he was attempting to reach something with his bill; but apparently he did not succeed, for he shortly withdrew himself from this hole, and flew to another, into which he intruded himself in the same manner. From this second hole he retired almost immediately, bearing in his beak one of the callow brood. He flew with his spoil to a high chimney at the corner house, followed for a short distance by ten or twelve sparrows, clamouring loudly at such an atrocious robbery; and one sparrow, probably the parent, ventured to pursue even to the chimney-top, as if determined to assail the fell destroyer; but both the rook and the sparrow quickly disappeared behind the chimney-pot, and prevented my farther observation.

Colonel Montagu records an instance of great sagacity in rooks. He noticed two of them by the sea shore, after having satisfied the calls of hunger, busy in removing small fish beyond the flux of the tide, and depositing them just above high water mark under the broken rocks.-ED.

Lapwings are invariably gregarious, assembling in very large flocks in the autumn. At this time they are esteemed excellent food.

The starlings also congregate in autumn. We saw a flight of these birds in the autumn of 1814, in Kings County, Ireland, which literally darkened the air, and must have consisted of at least a hundred thousand; they were flying near the immense marshy plain near Banachee, through which the Shannon flows. "In the autumnal and hyemal months," says Selby," these birds gather in immense flocks, and are particularly abundant in the fenny parts of Nottinghamshire and Lin. colnshire, where they roost among the reeds. Before they retire to rest, they perform various manœuvres in the air, the whole frequently describing rapid revolutions round a common centre. This peculiar flight will sometimes continue for nearly half an hour before they become finally settled for the night. Upon the approach of spring they spread themselves over the whole country."-ED.

I hope they answered your expectation. Royston, or gray, crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migration; for, as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might they, in all appearance, in the summer.* Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? Did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare?

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, anas Raii, is the last winter bird of passage which appears with us, and is not seen till towards the end of November. About twenty years ago, they abounded in the district of Selborne, and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more ; but, since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned, they have much decreased in number. The ring-dove, palumbus Raii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the summer.†

Before I received your letter of October last, I had just remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November, and may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer, but more particularly from vast armies of chaffers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again at midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in the year.

My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours, with a pitch

The royston crow, or chough, (pyrrhocorax graculus, of Temminck,) is not migratory. It is well known in Scotland, and also in England, all the year round. In other countries, however, it appears to be migratory. We are told that this bird has been observed to attend the inundation of the Nile, in September and October. It is a widely diffused species, being an inhabitant of the Alps, Siberia, and Persia.

Colonel Montagu had one, which would stand quietly for hours to be caressed; and if an affront were offered to it, would resist the injury with bill and claws. — Ed.

+ Considerable confusion arises respecting the stock-dove and rockdove; their history and individuality have been strangely confounded; some considering them as the same bird, and others as only varieties of the same species. The stock-dove, columba anas, is not migratory, as White supposes, although it is limited to certain districts of the country. It is common in Staffordshire, and some of the midland counties; but it has never been found in the northern parts of Britanny. The stock-dove is abundant in southern Europe. It occurs also in Africa, but does not extend to the southward of the tropic. Those of Germany and France are, however, migratory. — ED.

pipe set at concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring.

LETTER XLIII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, March 30, 1771.

DEAR SIR,- 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 children, 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 troublesome 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

* This is the acarus autumnalis, or harvest bug, which is one of the most teasing little insects in nature. Though bred to live on vegetable substances, such as French beans, currants, raspberries, and other fruits, yet it deserts these, whether by accident or design, to live on, and among, the most sensitive portions of the human race. These insects are so minute, that they are hardly visible to the naked eye, and that only when they are placed on a smooth, white surface: they are best known by their effects. Females and children are most liable to their attacks, and chiefly where any part of the dress fits closely to the skin: there they seat themselves, at the intersection of the lines, and lay such firm hold with their feet and jaw, that they cannot be displaced by rubbing, or by washing, unless a powerful spirit is used. The point of a fine needle is best calculated for removing them, while the person so employed must use a magnifying glass, to enable him to do so. They lacerate the skin in some way or other, and cause extreme itching, and considerable inflammation, which surrounds small vesicles, filled with a semi-transparent fluid. These animals have a fastidious taste, for there are some individuals whom they will not attack. Of two persons, for instance, who had been together, during a day's nutting in the woods, and who afterwards slept in the same bed-chamber, one of them was entirely covered with red blotches, from the attack of the bug, while the other was quite untouched. -ED.

H

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 Linnæus. It is to be seen, in the summer, in farm kitchens, on the bacon racks, and about the mantelpieces, and on the ceilings.

The

The insect that infests turnips, and many crops in the garden, (destroying often whole fields, while in their seedling leaves,) is an animal that wants to be better known. country people here call it the turnip fly and black dolphin; but I know it to be one of the coleoptera, the "chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, femoribus posticis crassissimis.* In very

* The hatica nemorum of Illiger, and the root weevil (nedigus contractus) of Stephens, are both formidable depredators, in turnip and other crops. The former of these is that probably meant by White. The caterpillar of another species of the genus athalia, is no less destructive. Marshall records an instance, in the Philosophical Transactions, of many thousand acres, which had to be ploughed up, in consequence of the devastations caused by these insects. The Norfolk farmers think they come from beyond the sea, and one even averred, that he saw them arrive in clouds, so as to darken the air; while the fishermen reported, that they had repeatedly witnessed flights of them pass over their heads, when they were at a distance from the shore. So numerous were they upon the beach and cliffs, and lay in such heaps, that they might have been taken up with shovels. Three miles inland, they were found congregated like

swarms of bees.

The maggots or larvae of the blow-flies are an equally destructive race to animal matter. Linnæus says, the musca vomitaria will devour the carcass of a horse as quickly as a lion would do. And this is not at all improbable, when we know, that a species nearly allied to this (the musca carnaria) produces not fewer than twenty thousand at a time; and that they have been proved by Redi to increase in weight two hundred fold within the short space of twenty-four hours. One of the most extraor dinary circumstances connected with the destructive powers of maggots, and of their attacking the human frame, is recorded in Bell's Weekly Messenger. "On the 25th June, 1829, died at Asbornby, Lincolnshire, John Page, a pauper, belonging to Little Willoughby, under circumstances truly singular. He being of a restless disposition, and not choosing to stay in the parish workhouse, was in the habit of strolling about the neighbouring villages, subsisting on the pittance obtained from door to door; the support he usually received from the benevolent was bread and meat; and after satisfying the cravings of nature, it was his custom to deposit the surplus provisions, particularly the meat, betwixt his shirt and skin. Having a considerable portion of this provision in store, so deposited, he was taken rather unwell, and laid himself down in a field, in the parish of Scredington; when, from the heat of the season at that time, the meat speedily became putrid, and was of course struck by the flies: these not only proceeded to devour the inanimate pieces of flesh, but also literally to prey upon the living substance; and when the wretched man was accidentally found by some of the inhabitants,

NOXIOUS INSECTS.

115

hot summers, 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 oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which, because it is omitted by Linnæus, is also passed over by late writers; and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham, in his Physico-Theology, p. 250: an insect worthy of remark, for depositing its eggs, as it flies, in so dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass horses. But then, Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists have discovered that singular production to be derived from the egg of the musca chameleon. See Geoffroy, t. 17, f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects, hurtful in the field, garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most useful and important work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected: great improvements would soon follow, of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and conversation, of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing their depredations.

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than some neat plates, that should well express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnæus; for I am well assured that many people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

he was so eaten by the maggots, that his death seemed inevitable. After clearing away, as well as they were able, these shocking vermin, those who found courage conveyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately procured, who declared that his body was in such a state, that dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death: and, in fact, the man did survive the operation but a few hours. When first found, and again when examined by the surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme; white maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and the removing of the external ones served only to render the sight more horrid.'

-ED.