26 



The Lepidopterous Enemies of Man. With special 

 reference to species that occur in Britain. 



By Robert Adkin, F-E.^.—Bead Mai/ 25t/i, 1922. 



When primitive man roamed the earth clad in the skins of 

 beasts, which he wore to a finish and then discarded, and for his 

 sustenance took such fruits of the earth as he might gather, as his 

 needs required them, probably the only insect enemies that troubled 

 him were those that bit his body. But as man became civilised 

 he began to grow crops and to store their proceeds; until at the 

 present time he grows his crops in dense masses and stores the 

 fruits of his husbandry in great bulk in barns and warehouses; 

 and as to clothing, whether his garments be of woven cloth or of 

 the furs of animals, he probably wears them for but a short period 

 and then lays them aside for a considerable time for his future use. 

 All this creates conditions favourable to the attacks of his insect 

 enemies and they have not been slow to take advantage of them, 

 until at the present time the losses caused by their agency are very 

 great, much greater indeed than anyone, who had not studied the 

 question very carefully, could imagine. 



Some idea, however, may be gathered of the loss caused by the 

 depredations of insects, from the writings of two recent authors, who 

 from carefully prepared statistics put the actual annual damage to 

 the crops and stores of the United States of America alone, the one 

 at 2,266,000,000^ and the other at 2,015,000,000"^ dollars, that is 

 somewhere round about five hundred million pounds sterling. 

 Now I do not suggest that we in Britain (and it is to species 

 occurring in this country that I propose to confine my attention) 

 suffer to anything like so great an extent. We do not grow our 

 crops on so large a scale, and our climate is not so suitable for the 

 rapid multiplication of insect pests, and although, so far as I am 

 aware, no very definite estimate has been made of the damage that 

 we actually do suffer, we may rest assured that it is very great and 

 that unless we are continually taking means to check it, it will 

 inevitably become greater and still greater. 



1 Sanderson and Peairs, " Insect Pests of Farm, Garden and Orchard," 

 New York, 1<)'21. 



2 Fernald, " Applied Entomology," New York, 1921. 



