OUR INSECT AND OTHER ALLIES 



Rev. T. W. Fyles, D.C.L., Ottawa. 



One purpose our Association has in view is the preservation of plants from 

 injurious insects. 



In the pursuit of this, it is, in the words that an old Divine made use of 

 with reference to the cultivator of the soil, " a co-worker with God," for the 

 Almighty has formed and commissioned a vast army to keep down the numbers 

 of the devastators of our fields and vineyards, our orchards and gardens. 



Among the most efficient battalions in this vast army are the numerous 

 predaceous and parasitic insect tribes; and so admirably do these defenders of 

 vegetation carry on their operations, that it is only under pecuhar circumstances 

 that the spoilers seem, for a time, to gain the ascendency. When they do so 

 they are justly regarded as plagues — occasioning alarm, annoyance, and loss to 

 mankind. What serious pests the Hessian Fly, the Midge, the Locust, the 

 Canker-worm, the Phylloxera and the Scale have shown themselves ! 



Of insects arrayed against the hurtful kinds there are, in common parlance, 

 many sorts of wasps, bugs, beetles and flies — in scientific terms, many species of 

 Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Coleoptera and Diptera — with a few of other orders. 



I do not intend to inflict upon you long Hsts and descriptions of our insect 

 friends. I wish rather, by advancing a few remarkable instances, to draw your 

 attention to the various modes of operation pursued by the creatures that, from 

 our standpoint, we regard as friends. 



I would remind you that insects pass through four stages of existence: — 

 (a) the Egg, (b) the Larvae, (c) the Pupal, (d) the Imago stage. In every one of 

 these the insects injurious to vegetation are liable to destruction by their foes. 



(a) Much has been written of late years on injuries wrought by the Tussock 

 Moths. Mr. W. Hague Harrington of Ottawa once raised from the eggs of these 

 mischievous moths a number of minute Proctotrypids of the species named by 

 Fitch Telenomus orgyiae. This wonderful httle insect is black and highly 

 pohshed, with yellow markings on the limbs, and with beautifully fringed and 

 hyaline wings — it is an insect gem ! 



Fancy the egg of this minute creature deposited in the egg of the moth. It 

 hatches, and the tiny grub from it luxuriates on the store of food contained in its 



