THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



91 



soon found the spot where the grubs were, and 

 worked it over most effectually. Now if they 

 wanted earth to eat, surely they could have got 

 what earth they required anywhere else, and with 

 much less labor. If they were in quest of roots, 

 they were sadly deficient in bog-wisdom to throw 

 over ground in which the roots were already des- 

 troyed ; but if they were hunting after grubs, then 

 were they true to their hereditary instincts, and 

 gave proof of their sagacity by hunting in the 

 very spot where grubs were most abundant. 



Hogs, I believe, are the cheapest and most effi- 

 cient means most formers can employ to destroy 

 these grubs. Hogs are always on hand ; but few 

 farmers are provided with such a heavy roller or 

 clod-crasher as alone would be effective, though to 

 be sure it may be weighted. 



If I may venture on a word of advice to my 

 brother farmers in this matter, I would say, if you 

 have a timothy meadow infested with the white 

 grub, take a pailful of shelled corn, and when 

 your hogs are somewhat hungry, entice them to 

 the spot where the grubs are at work. Scatter the 

 corn over the ground ; as soon as the hogs have 

 eaten all they can see, their snouts will of course 

 be at work hunting for stray kernels; the loose sod 

 will give way under their pressure, and the grubs 

 be found; after that, I apprehend there will be no 

 need to fence the hogs in, as recommended by Dr. 

 Fitch. When they are through with their work, 

 run the harrow over the ground, gather up the dry 

 sods into a heap, and smother-burn them, so as to 

 reduce the vegetable matter they contain to char- 

 coal, not to ashes. When cool, spread the charred 

 stuff over the ground, and re-sow at once, if it is 

 desired to keep the field longer in grass. I pre- 

 sume I need scarcely add further, if the primitive, 

 long-nosed prairie-rooters are better suited to this 

 work than the improved moderns — and judging 

 from my own experience, I have no doubt they are — 

 by no means gives up your short-snouted, chubby, 

 quick-feeding Suffolks and their crosses, on that 

 account; but if needs be, get rather a thorough- 

 bred alligator, and keep him expressly for grub- 

 hunting purposes. 



SELF-TAUGHT ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



I do not know how it is, but I am perpetually 

 meeting with Farmers and Mechanics, who know a 

 great deal more about the Natural History of In- 

 sects than I do myself. It is true, they have 

 never spent much time in ob.serving the habits of 

 Insects, and still less in studying the minute, 

 though perfectly constant characters, which often 

 separate one species from another. Neither have 

 they read anything on the subject, except what 

 they pick up from an occasional article about in 

 sects in the Agricultural Press, with the sad per- 

 centage of blunders and misstatements usually met 

 with in the entomological lucubrations, which ap- 

 pear in many Perio'dicals of that class. Still they 

 are excellent entomologists — in their own conceit ; 

 and without taking the trouble to read what some 

 pains-taking and well-informed author has publish- 



ed about some particular insect, they never hesitate 

 to jump into the .scientific arena, armed at all points 

 in the complete panoply of impenetrable ignorance, 

 and throw down the gage of battle before that author's 

 bewildered eyes. Why should they not? Mow- 

 ing and cradling and ploughing all have to be 

 taught; but knowledge of the habits and classifica- 

 tion of"insects comes by nature ! 



I thought that, having myself spent ten years in 

 collecting insects in various parts of Illinois, and 

 being acquainted with collectors in all parts of the 

 Union, and having probed to the bottom several 

 cases, where it was confidently asserted that the Co- 

 lorado Potato Bug (^Don/plwra Hi-llneatd) had 

 been captured in Illiuois previous to 18G4, and 

 found those cases to be all of them without excep- 

 tion nothing but mistakes, I ought to know some- 

 thing about the geographical distribution of this 

 insect, in my own State at all events. No such 

 thing. A gentleman from Illinois rushes into 

 print in the columns of the Rural American of 

 iMaroh 15, 1867, and asserts that I am utterly mis- 

 taken in saying, that the Colorado Potato Bug had 

 never been taken in Illinois previous to 1861. 

 Why ? Because he himself took a specimen on a 

 rose-bush " in Naples, a village on the left bank 

 of the Illinois Kiver, in the spring of 1863, and 

 placed it in his cabinet." But how does he know 

 that it is the genuine Colorado Potato Bug ? 

 Shades of Linnaeus and Latreille ! He knows it, 

 because he has seen in the Rural American "a 

 faithful picture" of the insect in question, (which 

 by the way was copied without acknowledgment 

 from the Practical Entomologist,) and because 

 his specimen is exactly like the picture ! ! More- 

 over he has forwarded the specimen to the Rural 

 American, and the Editor confirms his statement 

 as to its being "just like the cut in the Rural of 

 Feb. 1st, representing one of these bugs." There- 

 fore it is the genuine Colorado Potato Bug. There- 

 fore I am mistaken. Which was the the thing to 

 be proved. 



When lawyers assent to the truth of the facts as^ 

 sorted by the opposite party, but deny the conclU' 

 sions deduced from those facts, they put in what is 

 termed a "demurrer." So now do I "demur" to 

 the plea of the gentleman from Illinois. I fully 

 allow that his bug, captured in 186.3, is exactly like 

 the wood-cut of the Colorado Potato Bug which 

 appeared originally in this Journal, and was so 

 faithfully reproduced, line for line and shade for 

 shade, (always without acknowledgement), in the 

 Rural of Feb. 1st, 1867. I allow further that both 

 these wood-cuts are as correct representations of the 

 genuine Colorado Potato Bug, as can well be exe- 

 cuted in that style of art, without magnifying the 

 insect very greatly. Still I deny the conclusion to 

 which the Illinois gentleman so confidently jumps, 

 namely, that his Bug must be a genuine Colorado 

 Potato Bug. 



If this self-taught Entomologist from Illinois, in- 

 stead of leaning upon a broken reed and trusting 

 for Entomological facts to the Agricultural Press, 

 had had the good sense to take in the PracticaI/ 



