254 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



solely to one species of mosquito; typhoid, tuberculosis and other diseases 

 are peddled in all parts of the world by the common house-fly; yellow fever, 

 bubonic plague and sleeping sickness have made large portions of the globe 

 practically uninhabitable to the human race solely through the work of 

 insects. 



On the other hand, it is impossible to estimate the material benefits that 

 insects confer. Were bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects sud- 

 denly wiped out of existence, the majority of the world's flowers would go 

 with them leaving only such as the field corn and other grasses, and fruit 

 crops would then be failures. A few insects damage fruits in the United 

 States to the extent of twenty-seven million dollars annually, but practi- 

 cally all of the one hundred and thirty-five million dollars worth of fruit 

 that we use owes its existence to insects. It would be impossible to get a 

 single crop of clover seed without the aid of insects while insects damage 

 but ten per cent of the total hay crop. When fig-growing was first attempted 

 in this country, the trees never held their fruit until ripe. A minute insect 

 which fertilizes the figs in the Mediterranean region was imported and 

 now thousands of pounds of the finest fruit in the world are produced every 

 year in the United States. 



Often a crop is injured by an insect and relieved from that injury by 

 another insect. For example, twenty years ago the orange and olive 

 orchards of California were on the verge of destruction on account of scale 

 insects, when two species of predacious beetles were imported from Australia 

 and a little parasitic fly from Cape Colony. So thoroughly did these ac- 

 complish the task upon which human efforts had been of no avail that the 

 destructive scales are now as scarce as they were once abundant, and oranges 

 and olives flourish. These are only a few cases, hundreds of species of 

 insects throughout the country are doing similar beneficial work. In 

 addition we have many direct products of insects such as the shellac on our 

 furniture, the silk in our decorations, the honey for our bread and even many 

 of our medicines. 



Moreover insects are important to all interested in natural history 

 because of their large number, not only of individuals but also of species. 

 Approximately three-fourths of the known kinds of animals are insects. 

 There are more than fifteen thousand species of insects within fifty miles of 

 New York City as compared with about thirteen thousand species of birds 

 in the entire world and less than half that number of mammals. 



Insects form a group surpassing all others in material for study of in- 

 stinct or racial behavior, of variation in form anfl color; as also for research 

 in problems in heredity since the breeding is so rapid that the chain of 

 life can be kept unbroken for many generations. 



