124 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the next week. These larvas were taken off the 

 bushes August 12, at which date they were mostly 

 about i iueh long. I have little doubt that it is to 

 this same insect that Mr. Huron Bnrt of Missouri 

 refers, wlien he says that the gooseberries and cur- 

 rants in his neighborhood were all destroyed in 

 1865 by a "green worm." (See Practic.xl En- 

 tomologist No. 11, p. 114.) If it had been the 

 imported species, he would surely have spoken of 

 the black dots or spots, which catch the eye at once 

 in that larva. With the above two exceptions, and 

 possibly the case in Wisconsin referred to above, it 

 does not appear to be on record, that this indige- 

 nous species has ever occurred on anybody's bush- 

 es in such numbers as to attract attention. Yet 

 that it has existed in the Valley of the Mississippi, 

 and possibly in the Eastern States, for time imme- 

 morial, there can be no manner of doubt. For there 

 is no species of the genus Pristiphora known to in- 

 fect Gooseberry and Currant bushes in Europe ; 

 and consequently it could not have been imported 

 therefrom into the United States. 



Having procured all the above larvae when they 

 were so very small and young, that they could 

 scarcely have been as yet attacked by parasitical 

 insects, I am unable to say anything as to what 

 particular species of parasites may check and con- 

 trol the undue multiplication of this species. But 

 from the fact that this sawfly is so seldom noticed 

 as a noxious insect, I should infer that there must 

 be at least one indigenous Parasite that makes ef- 

 fective war upon it. In the case of Mr. Huron 

 Burt's species — which I suppose to be the same as 

 this — the insect seems to have been almost entirely 

 extirpated, from some cause or other, for at least 

 two successive broods. 



On the one hand, then, we find a native-born 

 American Sawfly, feeding on gooseberry and cur- 

 rant bushes, which has existed in the United States 

 ever since the country was first settled up by the 

 white man, yet was never noticed by any one, so 

 far as I can find out, as a noxious insect till the 

 year 1865, and then merely in a few scattered lo- 

 calities. On the other hand we have a European 

 Sawfly, feeding on gooseberry and currant bushes, 

 which has only been introduced into the United 

 States five or six years, and then merely in small 

 numbers, and yet has already almost put a stop to 

 the cultivation of these plants in a large district of 

 country in the State of New York, and is slowly 

 but surely spreading in all directions — ruining the 

 gooseberry and currant bushes wherever it goes, 

 unless the greatest pains be taken to counterwork 

 it. What is the cause of such a remarkable difier- 

 ence ? Why, of two Sawflies feeding on the very 

 same plants, and belonging to two closely allied ge- 

 nera, should one be comparatively innocuous and 

 the other be a pest of the most destructive charac- 

 ter ? It is because the first belongs to the old- 

 fashioned and less highly improved American Crea- 

 tion, and the last to the new-fashioned and highly 

 developed Creation of the Old World. In every 

 department of Organic Life the same law holds 



good. The White IMan slowly but surely is sweep- 

 ing the Red Man from ofl" the fece of the earth. 

 The European Horse and the European Horned 

 Cattle now roam in vast herds over largo districts 

 of America, where the more puny denizens of the 

 soil were formerly the undisturbed sovereigns. 

 Various species of European insects are slowly but 

 surely following in the train of the White man, and 

 occupying those places in the Scheme of the Crea- 

 tion which were formerly occupied by indigenous 

 American species of weaker and less energetic con- 

 stitutions. And even in the vegetable Kingdom, 

 the robustly constituted plants of the CHd World 

 are slowly but surely overspreading America ; and 

 the daisy, the toad-flax, the purslane, the James- 

 town weed, (Gympson weed), the pig-weed, and a 

 host of others are gradually seizing hold of roadside 

 and ploughed land and pasture fields with silent 

 but irresistible force. 



Dr. Fitch has observed that no American plant- 

 feeding insect attacks the toad-flax (Linaria vulga- 

 ris), a European weed, which, as it appears, terribly 

 infests many pasture-fields in the State of New 

 York; and has speculated on the propriety of im- 

 porting some of the European insects that are 

 known to feed on it in its native country. Ho has 

 also advised the importation of some or all of the 

 three parasitic insects that check and control the 

 excessive multiplication of the Wheat Midge in 

 Europe. But we should not stop here. The prin- 

 ciple is of general application ; and wherever a 

 Noxious European Insect becomes accidentally do- 

 miciled among us, we should at once import the 

 parasites aud Cannibals that prey upon it at home. 

 Nobody can doubt that if the Lion and Tiger and 

 Leopard of the Old World were imported into 

 South America and allowed to increase and multi- 

 ply there, they would greatly check the multiplica- 

 tion of the Horned Cattle and Horses that now 

 range wild over the vast Pampas of that country, 

 although our more puny American Felidx, the 

 Puma and Jaguar and Couguar, are unable to do 

 this. And on the same principle, if we wish to 

 fight efiectually against those noxious insects which 

 have been introduced among us from Europe, we 

 must fight them by the instrumentality of the 

 strong and energetic foes that make war upon them 

 in their own country. To attempt to fight them 

 with the poor old-fashioned indigenous Cannibals 

 and Parasites of America, is like sending out a 

 fleet of old-fashioned wooden ships if^ oppose a fleet 

 of ironclads. 



APPENDIX. 



After an attentive study of a valuable Paper by M. 

 Leon Dufour of France on the Sawflies of the Gooseberry 

 and Currant, (Annal. Soc. JSnt. France, ind ser. V. pp. 571 

 — 381.) I incline to the conclusion that there are but two 

 species infesting these plants in Europe — and not three as 

 IS maintained by M. Dufour — and that it is the second of 

 these which has been introduced among us. Here fol- 

 lows their synonymy, with my reasons for the conclu- 

 sions arrived at. It will be observed that the two insects 

 belong to distinct genera, and that our species, having 

 boon first described in the year 1819 by Klug. must, ac- 

 cording to the law of priority, retain his specific namo 

 and be designated as Nematus ventricosus, Klug. 



