A FISH OUT OF WArER 253 



fish pictures the kind of fisli which gave rise to the earhest land-Hving 

 animals, or the stock of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. In fact 

 the present little fish is known by anatomists to have many striking 

 similarities to salamanders. Thus in a general way, its limbs represent a 

 stage between fins and hands, and it uses them in a fashion which suggests 

 a salamander. So also in structures of skin, muscles, skeleton and brain, 

 the fish is to a certain degree, a connecting link between the true fishes 

 and the four-footed animals. 



As far as is known, this is the second specimen of a living lungfish to be 

 brought to the United States, and those who are interested in natural 

 history in general and in fishes in particular, would perhaps be glad to profit 

 by the opportunity of seeing it alive. Its scientific name, Protopterus an- 

 nectens, by the way, refers in the first word to its supposedly primitive fins, 

 and in the second to its being intermediate between fishes and amphibians. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF INSECTS 



By Frank E. Littz 



Introductory Note. — There are few halls in the Museum better arranged to instruct in 

 the particular animal class represented and in addition to teach the principles of biology than 

 the insect hall. It is used continually by high schools as a laboratory for their classes who, 

 because the hall is so well arranged in correlation with the high school courses and is so clearly 

 and fully labeled, can be sent to the Museum with lists of questions for undirected observation 

 and study. 



The hall has a separate exhibit, for example, covering the importance of insects. This 

 contains not only such objects as silk, shellac and other useful products of insects, wax models 

 to show the action of the bumble-bee in polhnating the flowers of the apple tree and thus 

 insuring the harvest of fruit, etcetera, but also diagrams telling with emphasis certain well 

 proved facts concerning insect-borne diseases, which can but make the boy or girl draw his 

 own conclusions as to the need of action and the value of action in such matters as public 

 hygiene. 



This is but one exhibit. There are many others covering the subject matter of ento- 

 mology and its practical relation to agriculture as well as special exhibits illustrating such 

 biological theories as sexual dimorphism, fluctuating variation, geographical distribution and 

 heredity. — Editor. 



THOREAU was right in believing that there was more to entomology 

 than the study of insect pests.' Yet if there were not, entomology 

 would still be the queen of biological sciences. Agriculture and 

 forestry are injured to the enormous extent of eight hundred millions of 

 dollars annually by less than one per cent of the insects of the United States; 

 the fourteen thousand deaths annually from malarial fevers in the United 

 States, to say nothing of malarial illnesses not resulting in death, are due 



» "We accuse savages of worshipping only the bad spirit or devil. Though they may 

 distinguish both a good and a bad, they regard only the one which they fear, worship the devil 

 only. We too are savages in this, doing precisely the same thing. This occurred to me 

 yesterday as I sat in the woods admiring the beauty of the blue butterfly. We are not 

 chiefly interested in birds and insects, for example, because they are ornamental to the earth 

 and cheering to man, but we spare the lives of the former only on condition that they eat more 

 grubs than they do cherries, and the only account of the insects which the State encourages 

 is of the insects injurious to vegetation." — Thore.vu. 



