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10. — Notes on Economic Entomology. 



By Eleanor A. Ormerod, F.M.S. 

 Communicated by J. Hopkinson, Hon. Sec. 

 [Read 9th May, 1878.] 



Ant additional arguments as to the necessity of horticultural or 

 agricultural science are at the present day uncalled for ; the im- 

 portance of a thorough knowledge of the operations which are to 

 provide primarily, or secondarily, a large portion of the national 

 food, commending itself to all. But it is not so with the sister 

 science of Economic Entomology. Although in great part with the 

 same practical objects in view, the two subjects are popularly on 

 very different footings, and although, during the last fifty years, 

 the importance of Economic Entomology has attracted the attention 

 of our own, as well as of some foreign Governments, and much has 

 been done (especially by Museum illustration) to show both how 

 our crops are injured, and how the injury is to be met, yet this is 

 only a beginning, and to be followed by practical results it still 

 requires more general attention. 



With the necessary increase of food to meet the wants of the 

 growing population, comes as surely an increase in the insect foes 

 which feed on the desired crops, and the difficulty still remains in a 

 great degi'ee as stated by Audouin years ago. The practical 

 workers who see and feel the effects of the injuries, have neither 

 the time nor the knowledge requisite to work out the observations 

 necessary to counteract them, and the scientific, to whom they 

 refer for aid, though acquainted with the evil, are often un- 

 acquainted practically with the working effects of the prescribed 

 remedies, which are necessarily not adapted for the exigencies of 

 each separate case. Insect agency still needs bringing forward as a 

 real existence — real as that of the crops yearly falling a prey to it, 

 to the great loss of the country, as well as of individual growers ; 

 and to those who have not yet turned their attention to the subject, 

 a few notes, though only conveying a most imperfect idea of the 

 great variety of injurious insects, and of the extent of injury con- 

 stantly or frequently caused by insect attack, may be acceptable. 

 For this purpose I have availed myself, for the most part, of the 

 reports given by Curtis, Kollar, and Kirby, also of memoirs in the 

 'Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,' and of some of the 

 excellent papers in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle.' 



Beginning with the corn insects, the CMorops (a minute two- 

 winged fly) sometimes causes much mischief. Its presence in the 

 crop may be known by the ear being usually unable to free itself 

 from the sheathing leaves, and by a furrow in the stem from the 

 base of the ear to the first joint below. A few years ago, in West 

 Gloucestershire, it was only necessary to look round in a barley 

 field to see at a glance the attacked heads, and on one occasion I 

 found them in such numbers in a stack that the insects might be 



