not a thorough draught for the wind; windy and elevated spots, on the other hand, are totally exempt from it. Another evil, again, in corn, is over-luxuriance, when it falls to the ground beneath the weight[321] of the grain. One evil, however, to which all crops in common, the chick-pea even, are exposed, is the attacks of the caterpillar, when the rain, by washing away the natural saltness of the vegetation, makes it[322] all the more tempting for its sweetness. There is a certain plant,[323] too, which kills the chick-pea and the fitch, by twining around them; the name of it is “orobanche.” In a similar manner, also, wheat is attacked by darnel,[324] barley by a long-stalked plant, called “ægilops,”[325] and the lentil by an axe-leafed grass, to which, from the resemblance[326] of the leaf, the Greeks have given the name of “pelecinon.” All these plants, too, kill the others by entwining around them. In the neighbourhood of Philippi, there is a plant known as ateramon,[327] which grows in a rich soil, and kills the bean, after it has been exposed, while wet, to the blasts of a certain wind: when it grows in a thin, light soil, this plant is called “teramon.” The seed of darnel is extremely minute, and is enclosed in a prickly husk. If introduced into bread, it will speedily produce vertigo; and it is said that in Asia and Greece, the bath-keepers, when they want to disperse a crowd of people, throw this seed upon burning coals. The phalangium, a diminutive insect of the spider genus,[328] breeds in the fitch, if the winter happens to be wet. Slugs, too, breed in the vetch, and sometimes a tiny snail makes its way out of the ground, and eats it away in a most singular manner. These are pretty nearly all the maladies to which grain is subject. CHAP. 45.—THE BEST REMEDIES FOR THE DISEASES OF GRAIN.