INSECTS AND ENTOMOLOGISTS 223 



one who has not been in this fight from the beginning and who has 

 not seen the changes in development, can really appreciate what has 

 happened in the last decade. Incidentally, this insect has made more 

 positions for entomologists and has stimulated more interest in ento- 

 mological work than all other species combined; in which respects it 

 may not be considered an unmitigated pest. 



As for plant-lice, their name is 

 literally legion and their study is 

 only begun. We find their eggs in 

 winter and the insects themselves 

 throughout the year. With the be- 

 ginning of plant-growth the Aphids 

 also begin development and the 

 character of the infestation is as 

 various as the plants or parts of 



1 , . . , , _,, , Fig. 15. A winged plant-louse. 



plants attacked. They are not even 



confined to the overground parts of the plant, but may be on the roots 

 as well ; either permanently or in an alternate stage. It is just allow- 

 able to mention the grape Phylloxera as a species that does all its real 

 injury in the subterranean stage, and to record that this is one of the 

 few contributions that America has made to European agriculture, in 

 return for the many that we have received. 



The host of other plant bugs that suck the juices of vegetation 

 can only be hinted at. Mention must be made, however, of the chinch- 

 bug, which in the middle west has been the subject of more careful 

 study and experiment, and has done, perhaps, more wide-spread dam- 

 age than any other of its ordinal allies. 



As to feeders on foliage, there seems no end to them and they are 

 of all orders. Nor are their injuries of recent notice. The plague of 

 locusts which devoured all crops was one of those visited upon Egypt 

 in the days of Moses, and similar plagues of locusts exist to this day 

 in African countries. They have not been unknown in the United 

 States in years past and it is not yet safe to say that there will be no 

 more. 



Gypsy and brown-tail moths afford excellent illustrations of the ex- 

 pense that caterpillars may impose on a community, for they have 

 cost Massachusetts alone not less than $2,000,000 directly and indi- 

 rectly, while the general government has already spent more than half 

 a million. 



No part of a plant being free from insect attack, the fruit and seeds 

 should also be infested, and so we find it. Codling Moth and Plum 

 Curculio are terms known to horticulturists throughout the country, 

 while cotton-boll weevils have more recently taken a prominent posi- 

 tion in our southern states. 



