44 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



When, however, they become unduly numerous, 

 the best and most effectual remedy, and one which 

 has been practised for mauy years back by Europe- 

 an horticulturists, is to place upon the iui'cstcd 

 plants a number of their natural enemies, collected 

 in the woods and fields. For this purpose the 

 means for collecting insects, ordinarily employed by 

 Entomologists, are readily available ; but as I pro- 

 pose to elucidate this subject in a future paper, I 

 will not enter upon it here. On greenhouse plants 

 fumigation with tobacco is an effectual remedy, but 

 it is too troublesome and expensive to be employed 

 in the Garden or the Orchard. As to the various 

 washes recommended for this purpose, 1 have not 

 much faith in them ; but from analogy I should in- 

 fer that a thorough drenching with hot water would 

 kill the plant-lice, and at the same time not injure 

 the plant. Experiments, however, are required to 

 establish the fact, and also to determine what de- 

 gree of heat may be safely employed. In this, as 

 in so many other cases, we need a series of experi- 

 ments carefully tried by competent scientific au- 

 thority. We know, however, from good French 

 authority, that Bark-lice may be killed by hot water, 

 without at all injuring the tree on which they oc- 

 cur. 



Now let us suppose, for an instant, that all the 

 multitudinous enemies of the Plant-lice, which 

 have been enumerated above, were swept away 

 from off the face of the earth by tlie besom of de- 

 struction. Then consider the enormous and almost 

 inconceivable rate at which, as has been already 

 shown, plant-lice naturally increase when uncheck- 

 ed and uncontrolled from any extraneous source. 

 Think of all this, and then tremble when the inevi- 

 table inference is drawn, that but for these de- 

 stroyers of the Plant-lice, the whole vegetable world 

 would in six mouths be as brown and dry and deso- 

 late as the deserts of Sahara. All animal life de- 

 pends either mediately or immediately upon vege- 

 table life. Hence, the Vegetable Kingdom being 

 destroyed, the Animal Kingdom would be involved 

 in the same universal ruin ; and man and all his 

 proud works would perish from off the fiice of the 

 globe. It may be to some a humiliating fact, but 

 it is nevertheless demonstrably true, that upon the 

 permanent well-being of a few small flies and bee- 

 tles, which we every day crush ruthlessly under our 

 feet, and which most of us consider as unworthy 

 the notice of any but women and children, depends 

 the very existence of that nob'ie race of beings, 

 that gave birth to Pericles and Thucydides — to 

 Cromwell and Newton — to Gustavus and Linnasus 

 — to Napoleon and LaPlace — and last but not least, 

 to Washinarton and Franklin. B. D. W. 



B@~If God could take pains to create an insect, 

 man may take pains to study it, without lowering 

 his dignity. 



B®~There are probably ten times as many spe- 

 cies of insects in the whole world as of all other 

 animals put together. Hence, the Entomologist 

 holds uo sinecure office. 



BIHDS fcr.iti.i INSECTS. 



It has been the fashion for some years to main- 

 tain that all birds, or at all events all the smaller 

 birds, are beneficial to the Agriculturist, because 

 they prey more or less upon insects, and that all 

 insects without exception are noxious vermin. 

 Nothing can be further from the truth than these 

 two propositions. There are many small birds 

 that upon the whole do more harm than good, and 

 some few whose works are evil always and con-, 

 tinually. And on the other haml, out of a hun- 

 dred distinct kinds or species of insects taken 

 indiscriminately, at least twenty-five or one-fourth 

 part will be found to be generally beneficial, by 

 preying exclusively upon other insects, many of 

 which are really noxious. 



I know from personal experience, that the com- 

 mon American Crow will dig up young corn out of 

 the hill, no matter how deeply it may be covered, for 

 the s;ike of the kernel attached to the root. And 

 I know likewise that the Swamp Blackbird (Atjc- 

 liiuis plioeniccus') will pull it up out of the hill for 

 the same purpose, unless it be covered so deeply 

 that the young blade breaks off instead of fetching 

 up the root along with it. For three long weeks, 

 when I first opened a farm in the midst of wild 

 land in Henry Co., 111., more than a quarter of a 

 century ago, I had to be in my corn-fields at the first 

 peep of, day with my gun, to save the crop from 

 the crows; and a hard battle I had to fight with 

 them, though by patience and perseverence I came 

 out victorious in the end. And yet, in the face 

 of the strongest evidence, there are writers to be 

 f jund, who deny that crows and blackbirds pull up 

 young corn for the sake of the seed-kernel, and 

 assert that it is only " a worm at the root" that 

 they are in search of!! (J/<7. Farmer, April 

 18lj6 p. 106.) But surely in that case the bird 

 woiild only attack a hill here and there, whereas 

 both crows and blackbirds will follow along a row 

 of corn, and gut every hill as they go. Again, 

 crows will dig into the tips of young ears of oora 

 when they are in the milk, so as to destroy at 

 least a fourth part of each ear, by the consequent 

 exposure to the weather; aud when the ear is 

 ripe they join the prairie-hens in stripping it of its 

 kernels by wholesale. Yet, on the other hand, it 

 is probable that all these birds devour at particular 

 seasons of the year many noxious insects ; so that 

 to find out whether each is to be considered, upon 

 the whole, as a friend or as an enemy to the Farmer, 

 we must draw up a careful Debtor and Creditor 

 account, and ascertain on which side the balance 

 lies. 



Take another well-known bird — the Orchard 

 Oriole (Icterus spurius). Dr. Trimble snys that it 

 knows how to find the leaf-rolling caterpillars in 

 (heir places of concealment, and other authors re- . 

 port it as a very general insect-feeder. We should 

 suppose therefore that it would be a welcome 

 guest in every orchard. Yet this is what one of 

 the most intelligent and successful fruit-growers 

 in Illinois, Dr. Hull of Alton, says of this bird : — 

 The oriole is a very destructive bird — too expensive to 



