INSECTS. 231 



These are merely samples of the great benefit which results 

 to us from the operations of insects. It seems to me that 

 there is no duty which should impress itself more strongly 

 upon farmers than this of learning how to discriminate be- 

 tween their friends and their foes. I might relate to you 

 many instances where the greatest injury has been done in 

 consequence of farmers murdering their friends, simply be- 

 cause they do not understand tliis distinction, and it is high 

 time that more attention was paid to this matter. 



Dr. Riggs. There is one protection against this red-legged 

 grasshopper which the Professor did not mention, and that is, 

 the common domestic turkey. Tiiey will destroy the grass- 

 hoppers in great numbers. This last season, I experienced 

 considerable benefit from two flocks of turkeys, owned by 

 neighbors, that I have generally considered rather as nui- 

 sances. They devoured immense quantities of grasshoppers 

 on the edges of my tobacco and corn fields ; in fact, they 

 lived on them. I intend to raise a large brood of them next 

 year, in self-defence. 



Mr. Smith. Although it is getting late, I would like to 

 answer two or three questions wliich have been asked. The 

 question in regard to " new creations of insects," partially 

 answered by Mr. Gould, perhaps deserves more notice.. There 

 is not the slightest foundation for the belief that there are 

 ever at the present time new creations of insects. The talk 

 about spontaneous generation, protoplasm, the origin of life, 

 etc., which is so common just now, may help to revive this 

 old idea of creations of insects, but no one among the scien- 

 tific men of to day, however strongly he may believe in spon- 

 taneous generation, or any theory of the origin of life, sup- 

 poses for a moment that insects ever originate directly in that 

 way. The organisms which some suppose to be produced in 

 this way, are far lower in the scale of organized beings than 

 any insects,— more different from Insects in fact than insects 

 are from man. Every insect is produced from some other 

 similar individual of the same species. What I have already 

 said in regard to the sudden appearance of the canker worm 

 and other insects will explain many facts of the sudden ap^ 



