292 MISSOUKI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Some years ago a writer in one of the annual agricultural reports 

 published by the United States, as early as 1862, (prior to the first in- 

 vasion by the Eocky Mountain lociist) speaking- generally on matters 

 Tital to agriculture, made the remark that the farmers of Pennsylvania 

 and other Eastern States, if they only knew it, have in their fields and 

 meadows species of vermin or insects that might, on some occasion, 

 after the causes that tend to hold things in equilibrium have been de- 

 stroyed, on a sudden multiply and rise up, seeking wider fields for sub- 

 sistence and prove to be a curse as dire as ever the plagues of Egypt 

 have been. At present they are generally harmless, being kei)t down 

 by foes. Among other things he declared that several kinds of locusts 

 were there, all confounded under the general name of grasshoppers. 

 He actually described and delineated by ^i illustration the same red- 

 legged locust, misnamed grasshopper, which, a few years later, fell 

 upon us from the Rocky Mountains, and he showed that it belongs in 

 the meadows of the Eastern States. ]S'othing, he remarked, but the 

 wise provision of Providence restrains these from becoming a consum- 

 ing curse. Two or three other varieties were included in same list as 

 dangerous, and he gave instances of their breaking bounds and doing 

 considerable damage some thirty or more years previously. Within a 

 few years past, in some parts of the southwest, a fly whose constant 

 habitat is somewhere along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and which 

 is fatal to man and beast by its bite, has been known to increase and 

 extend its ravages. In some parts of Europe, among some caves of 

 the Hungarian Mountains, an insect — a small fly — has its home. Its 

 sting or bite is fatal. It is supposed that certain birds feed upon the 

 larvfe of this fly and keep them from multiplying. 



Well, when we survey the whole field and learn by what enemies,, 

 seen and unseen, man 'is surroujided, and through what trials and fiery 

 tribulations the race has emerged to its present state, we are bound to 

 wonder that any of us are left to tell the tale. And when we learn that 

 one of the chief friends to man's subsistence here is the charming,, 

 graceful little feathered being, shall we not acknowledge it? 



CLAEK IRVINE. 



DISCUSSION. 



Does the bird law protect the English Sparrow ? If so, why not 

 repeal it ? 



Mr. Patterson — This society should say something about the Eng- 

 lish Sparrow. It is declared generally to be a nuisance, and I think it 



