Summer Meeting. 109 



he study and investigation of this branch of the animal kine,doni as 

 'low pursued at agricultural colleges and experiment stations as well as 

 by many individual entomologists. 



Through such observations we learn that it is not worth while to 

 waste effort to capture or poison certain sorts of winged forms, when the 

 species can be so much more easily destroyed by wholesale in the egg or 

 larva state. This applies to the parent forms of most caterpillars, slugs, 

 leaf-feeding beetles, etc. On the other hand in the case of borers and 

 some others, it is against the winged or perfect forms that our efforts at 

 extermination must be mainly directed. The three entirely distinct 

 forms under which many of the most destructive insects exist, make a 

 considerable knowledge of their transformations also a requisite to vic- 

 torious warfare against them. Their structure, too, must be recognized 

 to enable the fruit grower to apply the proper remedy. It is almost 

 useless to spray with arsenical poisons for such insects as obtain their 

 nourishment by suction, by means of a beak, while for many of the biting- 

 species, kerosene emulsion as well as not a few other patented insecticides 

 appear to be merely an additional flavoring to the leaves and buds upon 

 which they feast. Some insects can best be fought at one season and- 

 some at another. Sometimes they are to be met in open battle, when in 

 the act of spoliation, and in other cases effort is wasted in this way, when 

 the pests can be so much more easily overcome by what may be compared 

 to an ambuscade. 



For these reasons it is important that the up-to-date horticulturist 

 should make himself familiar, not only with the caterpillars, worms and 

 grubs that he finds feeding in the orchard and garden, but also with the 

 butterflies, moths, beetles and flies into which they transform, and also 

 with some of the most important of the cannibal and parasitic insects 

 that are always his best friends, and, in the case of some injurious forms, 

 his main reliance for the preservation of his crops from destruction. 

 These include the large, handsome ground beetles, the tiger beetles, 

 The mantis, or "devil's horse," the lace wing flies and a few other can- 

 nibal beetles and bugs. Almost every one kno\^ the value of the pretty 

 little lady-bug beetles, as exterminators of plant lice, scale insects and 

 other small pests, but some orchardists seem still to be unfamiliar with 

 their appearance and usefulness. Xot long ago I received from one of 



