Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- [18??]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey. Source: Wellcome Collection.
842/860 page 466
![CHAP. VII. THE GNAT AND THE TIPULA. There are two insects which entirely resemble each other in their form, and yet widely differ in their habits, manners, and propagation. Those who have seen the tipula, or long-legs, and the larger kind of gnat, have most probably mis- taken the one for the other; they have often accused the tipula, a harmless insect, of depredations made by the gnat, and the innocent have suffered for th« guilty ; indeed, the differences in their form are so very minute, that it often requires the assistance of a microscope to distinguish the one from the other they are-both mounted on long legs, both furnished with two wings and a slender body ; their heads are large, and they seem to be hump-backed; the chief and oidy difference, therefore, is, that the tipula wants a trunk, while the of which are said to be bred in the cane. The myriads of ants which once infested, but have now disappeared from, Grenada, committed, indeed, the most frightful ra- vages ; but it was rather by excavating their little metropolis beneath the roots, than by attacking the Irody of the cane. Among the most frequent and formidable enemies is the palm weevil {calandra palma- rum), of which Fig. 1, is the female cree^ ing; and Fig. '2, the male. This insect is principally injurious to the plants lately stuck in the ground, to which the female is allured by the juices which are exuded. These they Fig. 1. Fig. a (Palm and Sugar Weevils.) Bom etimes attack so vigorously, that a fresh planting becomes necessary. They do not seem to de])Osit their eggs in full-grown canes, when palms are abundant in th9 neighbourhood. Another euemy is the sugar weevil (oniru dra sarc/iari). which confines itself princi- pally to such canes as have been slightly injured ; though it sometimes attacks the more vigorous plants, which it excavates to the very ground. Fig. 3 is a specimen, and Fig. 4 a variety of tluB insecU *](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29010585_0842.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
