THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 29 



to know that besides its several cannibal foes, there are at last two 

 true parasites which attack it. Indeed, with the knowledge of the 

 Curculio enemies figured and described two years ago in the Ameri- 

 can Entomologist, and of the egg-destroying Thrips which I men- 

 tioned last year in a paper published in the Illinois State Horticul- 

 tural Transactions for 1869 (p. 90), and these two parasites, the grower 

 of our luscious stone-fruits may with good reason begin to hope for 

 better days, for the prospect brightens. There is no philosophy in 

 the statement of Mr. W. B. Ransom,* that we can never hope for 

 assistance from parasites, because, as he confidently expresses it, 

 "there are none at present but what have always existed!" Such ar- 

 gument will do for the believers in the old-school doctrine, that every 

 thing was created just as we find it; but not for those who rightly 

 comprehend the Darwinian hypothesis of development, and who 

 believe that life is slowly undergoing change and modification to-day 

 just as it ever has since it had an existence on this Earth. For my 

 own part, nothing has ever appeared more absurd than the direct 

 creation of something out of nothing, and I would as soon believe 

 that we all dropped full grown from the clouds — instead of being 

 brought into the world by natural means and gradually developing 

 into manhood and womanhood — or that we have the same habits as 

 our barbarous ancestors had; as to believe that the animal life about 

 us is now as it was in the beginning! Therefore, though these Curcu- 

 lio parasites may have existed in this country long ere the white man 

 first beheld its shores, yet they may only have acquired the habit of 

 preying upon the Curculio within the last comparatively few years. 

 Moreover, much benefit may be derived from their artificial propaga- 

 tion and dissemination, and — Utopian as the scheme may appear 

 — I intend next year, Deo voiente, to breed enough of the first 

 mentioned species to send at least a dozen to every county seat in the 

 State, and have them liberated into some one's peach orchard. 



THE APPLE CVRCTJ LIO.—Ant7ionomus quadrigillus, Say. 



"Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good !" 

 This injunction of St. Paul applies with just as much force to us 

 to-day, as it did in centuries past to the Thessalonians. In what has 

 been said above about the Plum Curculio, we have had abundant op- 

 portunity of testing the soundness of the old proverb, and in ascer- 

 taining the history of the Apple Curculio, which I am about to give, 

 it was very necessary to bear the advice in mind. It often takes years 

 to undo the assertions of men who are in the habit of talking glibly of 



* Prairie Farmer, June 4th, 1870. 



