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distributes them to institutions and societies, where they can be freely consulted, 
is worthy of all praise. No one ever need be at a loss for information upon any 
ordinary scientific point, for on writing to the proper Department in Washington 
he will receive an answer by the return mail. 
By means of the generous assistance of the Ontario Government, the 
Entomological Society of Ontario is able to put in the hands of all the agricul- 
turalists of the Province information with which they can fight most of the com- 
mon insect pests, and at the same time learn to determine which among the 
countless hordes of the insect world may be ranked as allies. 
The naturalist founds his studies upon the theory that ncthing in nature- 
is useless, and that everything that ismust have some special function to perform 
or it would not exist ; it is in tracing up these special adaptations to certain ends 
that he finds the charm which enables him to carry on the laborious investigations 
which are often necessary. 
As every one knows, vegetable and animal life are the two agents which 
nature employs to keep up the balance of creation, the one feeding upon or 
deriving its nutriment from the other. Now, these two agents are, to a certain 
extent, acted upon and kept in check by their own component parts. W henever, 
owing to particularly favorable circumstances, too many seeds of any one species 
of plant spring up in the same place, they do not all mature, for if they did all 
would be sickly from want of light and air, and the species would gradually 
degenerate. Consequently, it is provided that the weaker should be kept down 
and choked to death to make room for their more robust companioas. This is 
also the case in the animal world, as, for instance, with insects, When, from. 
special circumstances, any one species is abnormally multiplied, it is sure to be 
attacked and kept in check by some other kind, which itself may be a prey to ar- 
other species. Plants, through all their stages, from the seed to the decaying leaf, 
are the orignal source of support to some form of animal life ; wherever vege- 
table life is profuse, there insects abound. The green plant attracts innumerable 
small insects ; these in their turn attract larger carnivorous species, which are 
again preyed upon by birds and reptiles, and the larger carnivorous animals 
follow. The flesh feeders, thus depending one upon the other for subsistence, 
have an ultimate dependence upon vegetable life ; therefore, wherever there is 
the greatest variety of vegetable life there will necessarily be the greatest variety 
of animals, whether quadrupeds, birds, reptiles or insects. 
It is estimated that insects comprise no less than four-fifths of the whole 
animal kingdom. While there areabout 55,000 known species of animals, exclud- 
ing insects, the number of these amounts to upwards of 200,000. It is therefore 
manifest that they must perform some very important mission in the economy of 
nature. “It would be easy,” writes the Rev. J. G. Wood, in “ Insects Abroad,” 
“to show how the very creatures that are most detested by man, and co him the 
