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ecemoer. 



1958 



Decker: Economic Entomology 



119 



interest of a number of ardent tree lovers 

 and conservationists in other communities. 

 Some of these tree lovers, however, 

 clamor for more research without mak- 

 ing full use of the control measures al- 

 ready available. Scientists have spent 

 many years in developing fairly efficient 

 and practical control measures for 90 per 

 cent of the insect pests affecting shade 

 trees and ornamental plants, yet we find 

 that these measures either are ignored or 

 are employed in less than 1 per cent of 

 the cases in which they might be useful. 

 It seems doubtful whether administrators 

 will feel justified in diverting any con- 

 siderable portion of their funds to similar 

 projects until there is evidence that the 

 control measures already recommended 

 are being put to better use. A recently 

 published circular (English 1958) will 

 bring interested people up to date on con- 

 trol of insects attacking ornamentals and 

 shade plants. 



Insects Attacking Man and Animals 



Entomology has made its most pro- 

 found and spectacular advances of the past 

 100 years in combating those insects that 

 are pests to man and animals. There seem 

 to be two good reasons why this is so. In 

 the first place, we have learned consider- 

 ably more of the habits and relative im- 

 portance of these pests than was known in 

 1858, and, in the second place, as the 

 medical implications of these pests became 

 apparent, state and federal public health 

 agencies, men in many branches of science, 

 and the general public gave wholehearted 

 support to large research and action pro- 

 grams. 



Early Illinois entomologists had col- 

 lected and identified many species of 

 ticks, mites, mosquitoes, and flies, and it 

 did not require the services of a scientist 

 to advise farmers that large numbers of 

 these species were sources of annoyance 

 to their livestock, their families, and them- 

 selves. A couple of very casual comments 

 adequately attest to the ferociousness of 

 these pests: "There are prairies in Cen- 

 tral Illinois, as I am credibly informed by 

 numerous witnesses, across which it is im- 

 possible to ride or drive a horse in the 

 heat of a summer's day on account of 

 the Tabanus" (Walsh quoted in Cresson 

 et al. 1865:18). The genus SimuUum in- 



cludes "the Buffalo-fly of Illinois and the 

 West, which I have observed killing poul- 

 try in great numbers, and which is known 

 to torment horses and other animals to 

 death, when verv numerous" (Barnard 

 1880:191). 



While these reports may sound far- 

 fetched and exaggerated, the latter is sup- 

 ported bv a more recent experience. In 

 10 days of April, 1945, black flies killed 

 125 head of horses and mules and untold 

 numbers of poultry in Franklin and Wil- 

 liamson counties, Illinois. 



Possible relationships between these 

 insects and several of the most dreaded 

 diseases known to occur in the state were 

 unknown in 1858 and for the most part 

 were unsuspected. For example, no one 

 thought of connecting the common house 

 fly with the spread of cholera that took 

 the lives of one-tenth of the population 

 of several western Illinois communities in 

 the 1830's or with the outbreaks of ty- 

 phoid fever and dysentery that were so 

 common during and immediatelv after 

 the Civil War. 



It seems ironic that B. D. Walsh, the 

 first State Entomologist, was driven from 

 his farm near Cambridge by a malaria 

 epidemic and that he never suspected the 

 mosquitoes that increased with the dam- 

 ming of the river as being responsible for 

 the epidemic. All we know of this inci- 

 dent is contained in two sentences of 

 Walsh's obituarv bv C. V. Rilev (1869- 

 70:67). 



Finally, a colony of Swedes settled in his 

 neighborhood, and, by damming up the water 

 at Bishop Hill, produced so much miasma in 

 the vicinity, that very much sickness prevailed 

 there. His own health in time became im- 

 paired, and at the suggestion of M. B. Os- 

 born. of Rock Island, he removed to that city 

 in 1851, and entered into the lumber business. 



Indeed, there is ever\' reason to believe 

 that neither Walsh nor any of his con- 

 temporaries even suspected the relation- 

 ship between mosquitoes and malaria. In 

 his zeal to protect all beneficial insects 

 and to maintain the balance of nature, 

 Walsh was inclined to regard house flies, 

 horse flies, and mosquitoes as possibly 

 more beneficial than destructive. In 1865 

 he was quoted as saying: 



The scheme of the Creation is perfect and Na- 

 ture is never at fault. It is only when Nature's 



