14 The Book of Bugs. 



estimated that if all the enemies of Hemiptera (bugs that 

 suck with their beaks) should be destroyed at once, the 

 whole world would be starving in a few weeks. 



Not only is man himself annoyed and his crops de- 

 voured, but his cattle and his horses, sheep and domestic 

 fowl are slain by the million every year by insects. It 

 is not the iion that keeps South African veldts out of 

 tilth, but a fly, far more difficult to exterminate. The 

 lion kills only here and there a horse. The fly kills them 

 all. 



But insects do not only annoy man. They kill him, 

 too. The war with Spain taught us many things, among 

 them two that we but half believed before : that flies poison 

 us with typhoid and mosquitoes with yellow fever. If 

 we were really civilized we should exterminate these 

 beasts as we have the rattlesnake and the copperhead, 

 but being only just beginning to be civilized we retreat 

 into strongholds fortified with wire gauze, where the 

 invaders cannot reach us. Still, we are learning how to 

 fight them, and some day people will realize how enormous 

 are the benefits conferred upon us by the teacher, the 

 Entomological Division of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture. My share of the indebtedness due I can- 

 not liquidate, but I can acknowledge it (and that is some- 

 thing), not only for the information it has afforded me 

 in general, but also in particular for very excellent 

 illustrations, many of which appear in this book. There 

 is some mighty good reading in the reports of this 

 Department. I recommend their careful perusal. Of 

 course the authors of these documents cannot write so 

 charmingly as I can, but they know a lot more. I am not 

 sure but they have a little the best of it, at that. 



It is a sad story, the devastations made by insects, but 

 if, after having gone so far with me you feel inclined to 



