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ries in Germany, Poland, &c. from whence the corn Our travelling expences will not be

is imported.

heavy.

You see there laid up in that warehouse above a hundred different crops from different kinds of land, good, bad, and indifferent, heaped promiscuously together, waiting for a purchaser; when out comes a bounty for the sudden importation; the vessel sails, whilst the merchant has only one idea, which is to carry away the prize for the first importation, and a speedy market, and, without much examination, it is shipped on board: for it is the quantity, not the quality, which entitles him to it. And when it arrives, I need not tell you in what state it is too often found.

It is then bought up by jobbers, forestallers, who, rather than sell at a reasonable gain, endeavour by very unjust means to let it come but slowly out from their warehouses, so as to keep up the market, and sooner than sell it on reasonable terms, keep it close up till a great part of it becomes of little value, or rather worth nothing, the remainder is carried away in the night so damaged that it is not saleable, and thrown into the rivers: but it has answered their ends. By what they have sold, they have amafsed riches; thus enabled by their iniquitous practices to continue on in their iniquity.

What corn is grown in the country is not so liable to such risk. The farmer brings it to market regularly. It is his advantage that it should be in high condition: and no doubt he would have a far greater

rows. A good premium, ordered to be paid out of the land-tax, would soon totally extirpate the breed.

If these remarks, put down in a hurry, be found worth your attention, you will arrange them better according to your own way, and the great circulation of your valuable papers may, perhaps, stimulate some well-wisher to his country to step forward in the house, and propose some means for their destruction. If rats, contractors, jobbers, &c. came under the same. law, we should have corn in plenty. I remain, sir, your obedient servant, COLIN CLOUT.

It always pleases me to find a person who thinks for himself, and writes what he thinks. If, on some occasions, a young person should shoot a little beyond the mark, not much harm will be done by it. He may come nearer it when he next bends his bow. The path is thus, as it were, pointed out to another; he is stimulated to step forward when he might have otherwise loitered away his time in indolence. There is a good deal of truth in some of these hasty touches of my young correspondent, and they point at several things that deserve attention, and that may lead to more important conclusions than are at first sight apparent. I avoid at present any further critique or observations, with a view to encourage young investigators to continue their researches, which will ultimately prove not lefs beneficial to themselves than the public. The youthful vivacity, and sarcastic slyness of some of these combinations, are far from being unpleasing to me.

NATURAL HISTORY.

17

ON THE TRANSFORMATION, &c. OF INSECTS. [Continued from Vol. III. page 441.]

On the Metamorphoses and Habits of the Coccus tribe, or Gall Insects.

To a person who has made a considerable progrefs in the study of insects, few things appear astonishing, because he has been so often accustomed to meet with phenomena respecting these minute creatures that differ entirely from those which are observable among the larger animals on this globe, that he is prepared to expect them: but he who has just begun to enter upon that study feels as if he were in a region of enchantment, where phenomena of the most surprising nature are perpetually soliciting his notice; and he is, as it were, perplexed and lost between alternate sensations of doubt, admiration, and wonder. The diversities of changes and modes of life that take place in the very few that have been already enumerated in this work, during their different periods of existence as it may be called, are very great; and the object of our present recreation furnishes another diversity, not lefs surprising than any of those that have gone before it.

Few persons would imagine, that there could long remain room to doubt, whether an object that is so' accessible as to be within the reach of our sight and touch during the whole period of its existence belonged to the animal or the vegetable kingdom; yet this is so

much the case with regard to these objects, that for many centuries they were believed, not only by the vulgar, but by the most skilful naturalists, to be nothing more than a sort of wens formed by the extravasated sap of certain vegetables; and it was not till near the present century that doubts began to be entertained upon that head; the matter then remained for half a century in doubt, and afforded subject for many a learned dissertation on both sides: at last, the contest was terminated by some decisive facts observed by Reaumur, and which have been confirmed by all future observers; so that they are now known and universally recognised as a clafs of animals, whose transformations are as regular, and whose habits are as invariable, as those of any other insect that exists, though they are very unlike to any that were known before this discovery was made.

There are many varieties of this clafs of insects. Some of these are very common in every kingdom in Europe, and some of them of great value in commerce, and in arts; so that they have been long known. As their general transformations and habits are much the same, one description, with a few trifling exceptions, may apply to the whole.

The coccus tribe, when they have attained to such a size as readily to attract the notice of man, afsume the appearance of a small protuberance upon the tender twigs, leaves, or bark of certain trees, which gradually swell to a larger size, till they attain their full magnitude, without ever quitting the place where they were first observed, or making any kind of motion that can give the smallest indication of animal life. These

On the Coccus tribe of Insects.

19

kinds differ from each other in size, form, and colour; but for the most part they are somewhat of a spherical form, more or lefs oblong. At an early period of their growth they are flat, rising very little higher than the bark of the shoot to which they adhere, and are chiefly then distinguishable by their colour. As they augment in size they swell higher in the middle than they extend in their other dimensions, so as to rise on some occasions above the height of a semi globe, or spheroid; but in general they adhere close to the bark with their flatted side, which appears as if a part of the regular figure had been cut off for that purpose. The kinds which become most prominent so much resemble those excrescences which grow on many plants in consequence of the wounds produced by certain insects, and known by the name of galls, that they were long believed to be of the same nature; for their outer covering is generally firm and unyielding, like that of the galls; so that after they were known to be animals, Reaumur, and several other naturalists, called them gall-insects.

The most common insect belonging to this class in Europe is one that attaches itself to the peach tree; it is of an oblong form, and, when it has attained its full size, assumes an appearance somewhat like that of a boat reversed. Neither feet, nor eyes, nor other members common to animals, are discoverable upon it while in this state; but at one of its ends may be perceived a small opening, that does not apply close to the tree, very like that in the end of those beautiful Indian shells that are often made into snuff-boxes, and called couries, only it is not so clearly discernible

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