68 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



this worm forms the leading topic of conversation in every circle, and our 

 newspapers are giving notices of it in their columns. And the crude and 

 erroneous notions that are being formed and circulated respecting it sho\v, 

 in a most humiliating manner, the gross ignorance which pervades our 

 country upon topics of this kind. One gentleman tells me that in a con- 

 versation with the most noted and experienced nurseryman in our county 

 they had mutually come to the conclusion that this worm had been bred by 

 what in his neighborhood is termed ' the little green insect.' On enquiring 

 I ascertained that this little green insect, so named because they knew no 

 other name for it, was nothing more or less than Aphis niali, or Apple- 

 leaf Louse. And the idea that this louse breeds these worms is rather 

 more wild than it would be to conjecture that fleas breed bed-bugs. One 

 of the most intelligent and successful farmers, who sometimes wields his 

 pen as well as his scythe and hoe, favored me with the recherche infor- 

 mation that this is the 'canker worm,' at least, said he, it is the very 

 same worm that was called the canker worm in Connecticut when I was 

 a boy. Had my good friend asseverated that the moon was made of 

 green cheese he would scarcely have surprised me more. I overheard 

 another gentleman who is a graduate or one of our best colleges recom- 

 mending to another similarly educated citizen to bore his apple trees, fill 

 the hole with sulphur and close it by inserting a plug ' made from the 

 wood of the same tree.' Methought he ought to have added that the 

 hole should be made with ' a silver bullet,' or at least that this operation 

 should be done ' in the old o' the moon.' Friend Johnson, posterity will 

 only need what I have above stated to show them that mauger all our 

 vaunted light and intelligence in this, one of the most important branches 

 of natural science to the farmer, and one of the most interesting depart- 

 ments of Nature's works to every studious and enquiring mind, our country 

 at the present day is sunk in Egyptian darkiiess. In diffusive information, 

 as far as it respects Entomology, we are lagging tar behind the subjects 

 of several of the monarchical and despotic governments of the old world. 

 In Germany and Prussia, countries which are regarded as much less en- 

 lightened than our own, not merely is a professor of this science deemed 

 indispensable in every university and every agricultural seminary, but its 

 rudiments are taught in all their primary schools. In this country, on the 

 other hand, such a thing as a course of lectures upon this science has 

 never yet been delivered, except, perhaps, in one or two of our universi- 

 ties. Indeed, much of the very foundation of this science, upon this side 

 of the Atlantic, is yet to be laid. Whole groups and families of insects 

 have never been examined. We have not names even by which to desig- 

 nate a considerable portion of our species. Take this apple tree worm, 

 for instance. It belongs to a family of insects of which, in Great Britain, 

 there are upwards of 300 species. Our own country, we may safely as- 

 sume, contains at least double that number. And of our 600 American 

 insects of this family how many, think you, have been examined and de- 

 scribed ? So far as I am able to ascertain there are three species only! 



