280 AJfNUAL EEPORT 



THE CLAIMS OF ENTOMOLOGY AS A DISTINCT SUBJECT 



OF STUDY. 



By Prof. 0. W. Oestlund, Minneapolis. 



The number of different kinds of insects now in existence is great, 

 we would almost say innumerable. Their relation to man are mani- 

 fold, and often of greatest importance. If all insects should at once 

 become destroyed and the work that they now perform left undone, 

 we know that the earth would soon become uninhabitable, at least to 

 man and higher animals. Insects do not exist only as a matter of 

 chance, or perchance to torment us if we become too wicked, or to 

 blast our hopes by destroying the results of our work, as we would 

 often like to believe. Their existence has a deeper significance than 

 this. .These small creatures, to which I would now call your atten- 

 tion for a few moments, found everywhere where man has yet put his 

 steps, even to the ice-bound shores of the northern seas, seem to em- 

 body the very principles of vitality, activity and destruction. 



VALUE OF INSECTS. 



One of the most important and far-reachiog results of their work 

 is probably as scavengers. As soon as an animal falls dead to the 

 ground, or any other animal matter becomes exposed, these little ani- 

 mated beings, which are ever on the alert, are at once ready to bounce 

 upon it, tear it to pieces, bury it under ground, devour it, and soon 

 again to change it to living animal matter. The great naturalist 

 Linnaeus used to say that a pair of blow-flies are able to devour an ox 

 as soon as a lion. If you have ol>served these flies hover around a 

 carcass, depositing their innumerable eggs, which will soon turn the 

 object into a living mass of maggots, you will not only see the force of 

 the assertion, but become greatly amazed at the rapidity with which 

 nature is able to do away with a putrifying object that would only 

 give ofi" poison and death to every living object in the vicinity; and in 

 place millions of flies are produced, which in turn are ready to per- 

 form the same duty as they may be called upon. Not only are the 

 softer parts of the carcass that would first putrify immediately taken 

 in charge by certain species, but even the hide, the hoofs and firmer 

 portions of the body are all in turn attacked by other species, and 

 soon nothing will be left but the dry mineral portion of the skeleton, 

 which is now turned over to the sun and air to further disorganize at 

 leisure, but now without any evil effect upon living beings. Not only 



