THE 



ra^ttiral ®ttt0nt0l00fei 



A MONTHLY BULLETIN, 



Published by the Entomological Society of Pbiladelpbia, for tbe dissemination of valuable 

 knowledge among Agriculturists and Horticulturists. 



Vol. II, No. 1 



OCTOBER, 1866. 



Whole No. 13 



®he ipntctical (BntamalagtHt. 



^©"Published by the Entomological Socipity of Phil- 

 adelphia, at their Hall, No. 618 South Thirteenth Street, 

 Philail^^lphia. 



^^?~Edited by Benj. D. Walsh, Rock Island, Illinois. 



_^ga~ Terms — 50 cents a year, in advance. 



^S^ All subscriptions must date from the commence- 

 ment of the volume. 



^^a^The first number of this volume will be sent to all 

 who subscribed to the first volume. The second and fol- 

 lowing numbers will not be sent, unless payment for the 

 second volume has been previously received. Hence, 

 those who receive the second number of this volume may 

 consider it a receipt for the subscription-money. 



^^i^Business communications should be addressed to 

 "E. T. Cresson, Secretary of the Entomological Society, 

 Post Office Bo.x 2056, Philadelphia." Entomological 

 communications to "Benj. D. Walsh, Rock Island, Ills." 



PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1866. 



SALUTATORY. 



On assuming the editorial chair, it is usual to 

 make a great many promises, wliich may or may 

 not be kept hereafter. I shall not follow that ex- 

 ample, further than to say, that I shall use my best 

 endeavors to make the Practical Entomologist 

 ■what its name professes it to be — a real, live, prac- 

 tical Paper. Those who have already made my 

 acquaintance through the columns of thi.s Journal, 

 have of course formed their own opinion of what 

 I am able to do; and subscribers who are thus far 

 strangers to me, if they are as wise as I take them 

 to be, would not be influenced by a whole gasome- 

 ter of windy promises from an unknown individual. 



What little I have hitherto done for the Prac- 

 tical Entomologist, has been done without any 

 pecuniary benefit to myself, and solely with the ob- 

 ject of furthering the interests of science, by prov- 

 ing to the people, that scientific truths arc often of 

 real, practical, dollars-and-cents utility. Whether 

 my present position will be continued beyond the 

 current year, will depend principally upon whether 

 the American people endorse my poor efforts for 

 their benefit by subscribing liberally to the Prac- 

 tical Entomologist. BENJ. D. WALSH. 



6BASSH0FFSBS AND LOCUSTS. 



Shakspeare has said that "arose by any other 

 name would smell as sweet," and I suppose that, 

 by parity of reasoning, he would infer that " a 

 skunk by any other name would stink as strongly." 

 But Shakspeare was a poet, not a philosopher. 

 There is a great deal in a name. Call any given 

 kind of caterpillar the "Army-worm," and people 

 are immediately alarmed about it, and fancy that 

 it is going to sweep the whole country before it. 

 Tell them of a swarm of "grasshoppers" alighting 

 from the clouds in any country, and it excites but 

 little attention. But call the very same insects "a 

 devouring swarm of locusts," and they immediately 

 think of King Pharaoh and the desolated land of 

 Egypt, and are filled with horror and apprehension. 



Now, at this present moment, enormous clouds 

 of what are, properly speaking, " Locusts," are 

 ruthlessly desolating Kansas and Nebraska, and 

 some of them even passing into Missouri. Yet, as 

 the American people choose to call these insects 

 "grasshoppers,'' and grasshoppers are quite com- 

 mon throughout the United States, nobody thinks 

 much about it. In reality, however, the speciea 

 which is doing the damage, as well as most of the 

 insects popularly known as " Grasshoppers," belong 

 to the very same family of Insects as the Locusts 

 of Scripture and of modern Europe ; though, as is 

 the case with about 95 per cent, of the various in- 

 sects found in North America, the species differs 

 from any that occurs in the Old World. It is to 

 Prof W. S. Robertson, of the Indian Orphan In- 

 stitute, Highland, Kansas, that I am indebted for 

 specimens of the very insect which is now actually 

 infesting Kansas, though more than a year ago I 

 had been supplied with specimens of the same spe- 

 cies taken by my friend Dr. Velie in Colorado. 

 Singularly enough, this insect has never yet, so far 

 as I am awure, been scientifically described ; but 

 as Mr. Uhler, without describing it, has given it 

 the name of Galnptenus spretus, wc may designate 

 it in that manner. It differs from the common 

 Red-legged Grasshopper, (Caloptenus femur-rub- 

 i-am,') which occurs everywhere east of the Missis- 



