1901 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOGIKTY. 113 



COMMERCIAL ENTOMOLOGY, OR INSECTS AND INSECT-PRODUCTS MET 



WITH IN COMMERCE. 



By Charles Stevenson, Montreal. 



Everyone is familiar with the valuable place that the silkworm holds in commerce But it 

 would surprise many persons if told how many of those creatures familiarly known as "bugs " 

 command a price in the market, and very incredulous some would be, if informed that the only 

 too common ''hed-hug," Acanthia lectularia, Linn., or "B-£lat," as it was called by a musicai 

 wag, is used as a drug. A certain school of practitioners prescribe this pest in the form 

 of a tincture, as well as another "bug-bear" of the cleanly housewife — the cockroach, the 

 species Periplaneta Americana, Linn., being specified for the purpose. Not long ago, Periplaneta 

 orientalis, Linn., the "oriental roach " or "black beetle," a native of Asia, which is now found 

 in most parts of the civilized world, was recommended for the same use as the " blister beetle " 

 or "Spanish fly," Cantharis vesicatoria, Linn,, which is an official drug in both the allopathic 

 and homoeopathic pharmacopoeias. The Spanish blister beetle is indigenous to southern and 

 central Europe, living on the ash, lilac and elder trees. It is of a brassy green colour, and is col- 

 lected in Spain, Italy, Hungary and Southern Russia, but that which comes from the latter 

 country is most esteemed and is larger and of a copper colour. Several American species are 

 found to possess eiEcient vesicating properties ; among them may be mentioned the "potato- 

 fly," Ej)icauta vittata, Fab., which has the thorax black and the wing cases with yellow stripes ; 

 E. cinerea, Fab., a black species , E. marginata, Oliv., another black species, with ash-colored 

 margins on the elytra ; E. atrata, Fab., uniformly black, and smaller than those previously 

 mentioned. There is a species very abundant in Kansas and Colorado, C. Nuttali, Say, which 

 closflSy resembles the true Spanish blister-beetle, and has also attracted attention in pharma- 

 ceutical commerce. 



Two vesicating insects, Mylabris dehor ii, Fab., and M. phalerata, Pallas, indigenous to 

 East and South Asia, and also to some districts of Africa, are now imported as " Chinese blister- 

 ing flies, and are found to be quite as eflicient as the official insect. Lytta gigas, Fab., of the 

 East Indies, is also sometimes met with in commerce. 



The "oil-beetle," Meloe majalis, is prescribed in homoeopathy ?.s a tincture, to make which 

 the living insect is drowned in alcohol. 



If allopathic medicine were to give way to the doctrine of ^^ similia similibus curantur,', 

 farmers might be able to form a " combine " for the supply of the "Colorado potato-beetle,'' 

 Doryphora decemlineata, Say, that insect being the base of a certain tincture, made by 

 taking thfe living insects, one part, crushing them, adding five parts of alcohol, macerating for 

 eight days in a dark, cool place, shaking twice a day, and then pouring oif the liquid, straining 

 and filtering. In the same way medicines. are made of several spiders, and a trituration is pre- 

 pared of the freshly-spun webs of the genus Aranea. 



Although entomologists have often raised spiders for purposes of scientific observation and 

 investigation, spider- raising as a money-making industry is somewhat novel. One has only to 

 go four miles from Philadelphia on the Lancaster pike, to the farm of Pierre Grantaire, and see 

 what can be found nowhere else in the United States, and abroad, only in a little French village 

 in the department of the Loire. Pierre Grantaire furnishes spiders at so much per hundred for 

 distribution in the wine vaults of merchants and the noveaux riches. 



In some forms of practice several " live " insects that possess poisons are used in making 

 tinctures; they are irritated or aggravated so as to make them "throw oflF" by shaking or 

 stirring them up in a jar or bottle. One of these creatures that is "first made mad " before the 

 introduction to alcohol is the " hornet " Vespa crabo, Linn. ; another is the well-known " honey 

 bee," Apis mellifica, Linn. Besides the tincture of the whole insect, the pharmacist prescribes 

 8 EN. 



