528 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



I do not know how the figures stand 

 now but not so very long ago there were, 

 in the United States, fourteen times as 

 many deaths due to malaria and in- 

 testinal diseases (many of which are 

 carried by insects) as were caused by 

 railroad accidents. Insects caused a 

 property loss in the United States of 

 five times that caused by fire. They 

 took twenty per cent of the fruit crops 

 in the United States, but in return gave 

 us the remaining eighty per cent, for 

 they pollenated the Ijlossoms and so 

 enabled the fruit to develop. In fact, 

 the damage done by insects is due al- 

 most entirely to less than one per cent 

 of the species, and a large number of the 

 remainder spend their lives keeping 

 these in check. Human efl^orts have 

 failed to exterminate the gypsy moth, 

 and the United States government is 

 now importing insect parasites of the 

 pest to aid in the work. The Australian 

 lady beetle has saved the orange groves 

 of California from the white scale. 



While these considerations — and page 

 upon page of unexaggerated statistics 

 could be given to enforce the point — 

 are important, Thoreau was not far 

 wrong when he said: "We accuse 

 savages of worshiping only the bad 

 spirit or devil. Though they may dis- 

 tinguish 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 \Aue butterfly. We are not 

 chiefly interested in birds and insects, 

 for example, as 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 vegeta- 

 tion." 



Far be it from an entomologist to 

 apply Thoreau's characterization to the 

 governing bodies of our educational 

 institutions. Wlien universities fail to 

 provide, in a curriculum, more than a 

 smatter for the study of insects, they 

 are merely reflecting the general state 

 of human minds. It is more difficult, 

 on the average, to identify an insect 

 than an animal belonging to a smaller 

 group, yet if museums provided curators 

 of entomology, with the same liberality 

 with which they provide curators of 

 vertebrate animals, there would be in 

 the American Museum alone, in pro- 

 portion to the number of species in- 

 volved, more than seventy-five on the 

 scientific staff working with insects, 

 carrying on research, identifying speci- 

 mens for amateurs, writing leaflets to 

 interest and help the layman, as well as 

 supervising the preparation of exhibits 

 Avhich would not only display the 

 interest and wonder of insect life but 

 also explain, by their efficient aid, the 

 problems of general biology. 



Why are things so? I do not know. 

 When people really get acquainted with 

 even a few insects there is no lack of 

 interest. Twice a month about a score 

 of business men, lawyers, doctors, stock- 

 brokers and "laboring men," meet in 

 a room in this Museum and discuss 

 insects with an enthusiasm not sur- 

 passed by any society affiliated with 

 the New York Academy of Sciences. 

 A similar society meets in Brooklyn; 

 another in Newark. These men, each 

 from his own viewpoint, appreciate 

 insects. Perhaps the reason most of 

 us do not, is because we still cling to the 

 ideas of centuries ago when everyone 

 understood "Beelzebub" to mean liter- 

 allv "lord of flies." 



