THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. IS 



The theory advanced in the above paper, may meet with some 

 objectors, although I confidently believe in the inference there stated 

 of the relative advancement and improvement of the flora and fauna 

 of the two continents. But there is another reason why the insects 

 which are imported into this country multiply at a prodigious rate, 

 and soon acquire herculean power of doing harm, though they may 

 never have stepped beyond the limits of propriety in their own native 

 home — a reason too palpable and evident to savor of the theoretical. 

 It is, that whenever an injurious insect is introduced in our midst, as 

 a general rule the particular parasite or parasites which kept it in 

 check abroad, are not introduced with it. In consequence, the for- 

 eigners, unaccompanied by the usual gens (Vannes, throw off all re- 

 straint and play the deuce with our crops; just as the rats and mice 

 will take possession of, and overrun a house, if not restrained by hu- 

 man or by feline agencies. 



Sometimes, as in the case of the Imported Currant-worm, the 

 noxiout insects introduced from the old world are attacked by native 

 American parasites, but as I believe the parasites of European na- 

 tivity to be, as a rule, more energetic and vigorous than our indige- 

 nous ones, it would be advisable even in such a case, to import in 

 addition such species as prey upon it in Europe. But in the case of 

 the Wheat Midge which has actually flourished among us for almost 

 half a century without a single parasite of any kind whatever infest- 

 ing it from one end of the country to the other, it is sheer folly and 

 cupable shiftlessness not to import among us from the other side of 

 the Atlantic some one or all of the three different Chalcis flies which 

 are known to check it throughout all Europe. And so with other 

 insects which are known to be unaccompanied with the parasites 

 which attack them abroad. Years and years ago Dr. Fitch demon- 

 strated in print the policy of such a step; but bugs and bug-hunters 

 are so very generally the subject of festive ridicule among the high 

 and low vulgar, that hitherto the recommendation of the State Ento- 

 mologist of New York has met with no practical response. 



Now no one will fail to understand the force of the old proverb 

 already quoted, after listening to these facts. Let us profit by the 

 experience of the past, and while battling with those foes which are 

 already in our midst, let us keep a watchful eye, and be on our guard 

 ready to crush any new plague that may threaten us, before it gets 

 beyond control. Yes, but say you, how is this to be accomplished? 

 Can it be done by the government ? Yes, in some cases ; as for in- 

 stance in the importation of parasites, government aid should be so- 

 licited. If, in 1860, when the Asparagus Beetle ( Crioceris asparagi, 

 Linn.) was first introduced on to Long Island, the Legislature of the 

 State of New York had taken proper action in the matter, the insect 

 might have been stamped out of the island at the trivial expense of 

 a few hundred dollars, instead of being allowed to multiply, as it did, 

 to such an extent as to occasion a dead loss of some fifty thousand 



