4] 
SEVENTH SOIREE. 
Moxpay, 15TH Marcu.—" ON some INSECTS CAPTURED DURING OUR Excursions.’— 
Mr. W. Hacue Harrineton, 
1t affords me much pleasure to have the opportunity this evening of bringing 
before you a few facts concerning some of the various insects taken during our 
delightful excursions last summer. If the first half of my paper seems some- 
what wide of the text, it is because I feared that an address devoted entirely to 
descriptions of insects might be uninteresting to some, and because I wished to 
make a few general observations on Entomology, a subject which has as yet not 
received, from the members of this Club, the consideration it so richly deserves. 
Still, recollecting that Rome was not built in a day, we must make allowance for 
the youth of the Club, the work accomplished by which during the year just 
closing—the first year of its existence—has been a highly creditable one, sur- 
passing the most sanguine anticipations of its promoters, who now can confi- 
dently look forward to increasing fruitful labours by its members. The attention 
of these has been, in the present year, too exclusively occupied by one subject, 
in itself a very worthy one, but oae which should not absorb so much of the best 
talent of the Club. While botany has had its score or more of devotees, the 
sister branches have been attended but by two or three. Thus it has been with 
Entomology, which has claims equal with, if not greater than, those of Botany 
upon our members. Perhaps it is as well that Botany has first been investigated, ° 
because some knowledge of it is necessary to the student of insect life. If one 
would be a thorough entomologist—and to be thorough should be the aim of 
all—it is indispensable that he should be able to identify the plants upon which 
he may find certain inseets. We need only look around us at the well-filled and 
carefully-arranged cases upon these walls to be aware that, at one time, an ento- 
mologist of no mean abilities pursued his pleasing and useful Jabours in this 
locality ; and have we not the right to expect that some among the members of 
this Club may be able to accomplish like results and achieve like reputation in 
this wide field where he (Mr. Billings) worked so successfully ? 
At the present time there is not much occasion to vindicate the study of 
any branch of Natural History from the charge of being merely the frivolous 
amusement of unpractical minds. Some years ago it might have been necessary 
to do so, for naturalists, and particularly entomologists, were looked upon as 
harmless lunatics and idlers. No doubt, by many of our citizens, in common 
with those of other places, the insect-collector is still looked upon with mingled 
compassion and ridicule when they chance to meet him wandering in field and 
wocd, but as these places have few charms for such practical and hard-headed 
personages, he is generally free from their observations. I am sure, however, 
that no such feeling lurks among my fellow-members, for, having enrolled them- 
selves among the students of Nature, they have learned that all her productioas 
are of much interest and worthy of careful investigation. Still, those who have 
not paid particular attention to the subject of insect life can have but a slight 
idea of the important part played by these minute but innumerable creatures in 
the economy of nature. ‘Their size, in general, is so insignificant, and their 
individual performances are so limited, that it would seem almost absurd to 
accuse them of the destruction actually accomplished by their joint efforts. You 
ave all familiar with the loss inflicted on our farmers by the Colorado potato 
beetle ;—perhaps many of you have had some difficulty in keeping him off your 
premises—yet this beetle, despite the potatoes and paris-green he devours, is a 
much less obnoxious insect than some which infest even our own country. Our 
prairie province, Manitoba, has in the past suffered severely from the locusts, ov 
grasshoppers, and these have also-devastated, in some years, immense tracts in 
the Western States, devouring wheat, corn, barley and every green thing; the loss 
