the gammons and best part 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 mantel-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 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 "chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, femoribus posticis crassissi mis, "The cabbage chrysomela, moving by a leap, with very thick hind-legs.' In very 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 Mouffet, 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

*This is most probably the haltica nemorum, called by the farmers the Fly and Black Jack, so well described by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their admirable chapters on indirect injuries. It attacks and devours the first cotyledon leaves, as soon as they are unfolded; so that, on account of their ravages, the land is often obliged to be resown, and with no better success. By these entomologists it is stated, on the authority of an eminent agriculturist, that, from this cause alone, the loss sustained in the turnip crops in Devonshire, in 1786, was not less than 100,000l. Great damage is also sometimes done by the little curculio contractus, which, in the same manner, pierces a hole in the cuticle. When the plant is more advanced, and out of danger from these pigmy foes, the black larva of a saw-fly takes their place, and occasionally does no little mischief, whole districts being sometimes stripped by them, and, in 1783, many thousand acres were on this account ploughed The caterpillar of papilio brassica is sometimes found in great numbers, and the wire-worm also does occasionally great damage, both to turnips and other vegetable and flower-roots. Mr. Kirby mentions a field in which onefourth was destroyed, and which the owner calculated at 100%. One year, the same person sowed a field three times with turnips, which were twice wholly, and the third time a great part, cut off by this insect.-W. J.

up.

that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions after. wards; for more modern entomologists have discovered that singular production to be derived from the egg of the musca chamaleon. 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 that can be conveyed at first by words alone.

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, 1770.

DEAR SIR,-Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could not help observing, that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails, those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case, were these long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey cock, when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibra

tion, these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards towards the females.

I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus gogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox. It is perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think, usually flat.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, Aug. 1, 1771.

DEAR SIR, From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat or F sharp, in B flat, and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and the other in B flat. Query: Do these different notes proceed from different species, or only from various individuals? The same person finds, upon trial, that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species,) varies in different individuals; for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D; he heard two sing together, the one in D, and the other in D sharp, which made a disagreeable concert; he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest, some in C. As to nightingales, he says, that their notes are so short, and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of