1911] The Ottawa Naturalist. 65 



exhaustion of financial means which prevented the cutting of 

 the Panama Canal, so much as the impossibility of carrying on 

 the work in that mosquito-infested territory, which obstacle has 

 been overcome by the application by the United States officials 

 of such anti-mosquito measures as the study of the mosquito 

 problem has shown to be necessary. It is now realized that flies, 

 such as our common domestic fly, were responsible, by the 

 carriage of the germs of enteric fever, for far more deaths in the 

 South African War than all the bullets and shells of our ad- 

 versaries. The activities of insects not only increase the rates 

 of mortality, especially of our young children, in large cities, 

 but also deprive man of the results cf his patient toil on the land. 

 It" is estimated that in the United States and Canada that the 

 total annual loss due to the depredations of insects alone is from 

 10 to 25 per cent, of the total value of the crops produced, which 

 loss annually amounts to millions of dollars. 



As an example of the enormous depredations of injurious 

 insects in Canada, a species of saw-fly is causing the destruction 

 of all the larch or tamarack trees over a tract of 1,500 miles of 

 forest. In the eastern United States, two insects, the gipsy moth 

 and brown-tail moth, which have been accidently introduced 

 from Europe, where they are kept in check by their natural 

 parasites, are entailing an annual expenditure of over a million 

 dollars in attempting to control them, and they are still spread- 

 ing. These facts alone serve to indicate the practical import- 

 ance, which is not usually realized, of the subject of insect life. 



A few years ago an enthusiast suggested that the subject 

 of economic entomology, as the science of entomology as applied 

 to man's welfare is termed, should form a subject of the second 

 curriculum. In reply to this it was pointed out by the writer 

 that if insect life, or in fact animal life, were properly taught in 

 schools, and no one will deny that such should be the case, this 

 would necessarily include a consideration of the relation of 

 animals to ourselves. It is not merely that the cow gives us 

 milk, boots and knife handles; the sheep, clothing and food; 

 the bee, besides being an example of industry, supplies honey 

 and wax; and the silk worm, adornment; but what is equally 

 if not more important (to quote a single example) the housefly 

 is not only an annoying but a dangerous insect, and a menaceto 

 public health on account of its habits, w r hich are now well known. 

 These examples serve to show how insect life should be corre- 

 lated with lessons on other subjects as hygiene, etc. Nor should 

 teachers be unwilling to talk about the less attractive creatures 

 such as the louse, in view of the reports of the Medical Inspectors 

 of schools on the percentage of verminous children; this is not a 

 pleasant subject for a teacher to deal with, but it is a very 



