REPORT. 



Office of the State Entomologist, ) 

 Albany, Naoemher 25, 1891. j 



To the Regents of the Unmersity of the State of New York : 



Gentlemen. — I have the honor of presenting to your board 

 my Eighth Report on the Injurious and Other Insects of the State 

 of New York, containing the results of observations and studies 

 made by me during the present year. 



The year has not been prolific in insect life, either in the mul- 

 tiplication of individuals of a species, or in the number of special 

 pests. The abundance of insects varies greatly in different years. 

 While this may be, and often is, controlled to a large extent bv 

 the beneficent provision in nature of parasitism, through which 

 certain classes of insects live wholly at the expense of others, it 

 is still more largely due to meteorological conditions, varied in 

 their nature and complex in their influences. Among these may 

 be named drouth, excessive moisture, high temperature, severe 

 cold, late and early frosts, depth of frost, winds, cold rains, 

 continued rain, and absence or abundance of snow. Under such 

 diverse and conflicting conditions, the aggregate of insect injury 

 for any year can never be foretold for months in advance, 

 although in individual cases, as in the chinch-bug and the western 

 locust, predictions for the succeeding season have been made and 

 verified. An excessive abundance of an insect pest in one year 

 may be followed by its almost entire absence in the next, while a 

 disastrous attack may suddenly be made upon a valuable crop by 

 an insect long known but never before recognized as of the 

 slightest economic importance. 



When to these fluctuations in insect life there is added con- 

 tinually changing habits, wild food-plants deserted for cultiv^ated 

 ones, gradual extension of geographic range, introduction by 

 commerce from abroad, etc., etc., it is not surprising that each 

 year should bring to the economic entomologist new subjects for 

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