36 



nothing. There is not an entomologist that has collected 

 insects in the same localit}-, during a long series of years, 

 that will not be able to give a similar experience. Both 

 Bates and Wallace speak of similar experiences in tropical 

 and primitive forests, and the native collectors in these coun- 

 tries, at the present time have learned to take advantage of 

 this peculiar state of affairs, and their knowledge upon this 

 point is really a part of their profession. Thus we again 

 find that the changes of a hundred years of civilization has 

 not sufficed to obliterate the old and primitive habits, if we 

 may term them such, and that as is the case today, many 

 species have always occurred in a sor.t of metropolis, or pos- 

 sibly several, more or less distantly separated, and outside 

 of these tliey occur but rarely, if at all. But within the last 

 century the flora on hundreds of thousands of acres, once 

 covered with forest trees, herbacious plants and grasses, to 

 the extent of several hundred species, has been completely 

 revolutionized, in that these trees, plants and grasses have 

 all or nearly been exterminated, and replaced by a very few, 

 often not more than three or four, and these differing radi- 

 cally from the primitive species. Now what has become of 

 these favored haunts of particular species of insects? What 

 has become of the metr'opolis? It has been as effectually 

 obliterated, in many cases, as has the metropoHs of the 

 aborigines, of the dusky Eries, Miamis and the Potawa- 

 tomies. If it was a struggle for life before, what has it bee'n 

 since? Not only have forests disappeared, but the very 

 earth has been upturned by the plow, and the swamps have 

 been intersected b}'- canals and ditches and tile drainage con- 

 nected with these, so that even these places have been ren- 

 dered uninhabitable for the aquatic and semi-aquatic insects 

 and plants that formerly flourished there. I know of a swamp 

 of several hundred acres, where I used to shoot ducks in 

 summer and skate in winter, that is now an unbroken field 

 of maize, and another of 12,000 acres that has been reclaimed 



