SECRETARY'S REPORT. 139 



The discussion of the question was continued by Mr. Fisk of 

 Shelburne, Dr. Loring, Mr. Stedman, and others, till the Board 

 adjourned. 



Afternoon Session. — Mot at two and one-half o'clock. Mr. 

 Lathrop in the chair. A lecture was delivered on 



THE PIABITS OF INSECTS IN THEIR RELATIONS TO MAN, 



« 



BY MR. FRANCIS G. SANBORN, OF BOSTON, 

 Ento7nologist to the Board. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I have been requested to 

 address you at this time, upon the subject of Economical Ento- 

 mology, or the science of insects, their habits and transforma- 

 tions ; with a view to ascertain the easiest mode of destroying 

 such species as are proved injurious to our crops, or of protect- 

 ing and cultivating those which are practically our friends. 



In the very outset of my task, I am met with the barrier 

 upraised by popular prejudice, and the general contempt for, or 

 ignorance of the nomenclature of this science. With no desire 

 to, be hypercritical, I cannot ignore the fact that those very 

 persons who would be the first to notice, and ridicule such 

 misnomers as the " Devon horse " or the " Southdown bull," 

 speak with the most perfect complacency of the " rosebug," the 

 " seventeen-year locust," and the " flying grasshopper ; " terms 

 which sound to the full as ludicrously in the ear of a naturalist. 

 This condition of affairs cannot be reformed at once, and yet 

 the prospect of a general knowledge of natural history grows 

 brighter from day to day. When we shall have learned to teach 

 the results of the past, and the details of the present, instead of 

 the details of the past, and the minutiae of the remote, we shall 

 have accomplished more for the advancement of that knowledge 

 which is power, than the most sanguine apostles of practical 

 education ever dreamed of. 



Is it the most important to the embryo farmer, to acquire and 

 retain the names of the founders of Rome, and the number of 

 rivers emptying into the Caspian Sea, or to be able to distin- 

 guish between the sorghum and the Indian corn, the hawk and 

 the robin, or the cutwc^m and its destroyers ? 



