1883.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



OUR INSECT FRIENDS.* 



Thrf long persistent and continuous aniinad- 

 versioii of our insect enemies may have lead 

 many people to suppose that all insects were 

 the special enemies of the human family, and 

 all that related to its welfare. This, however, 

 is a very grave error, and the sooner, and 

 more thoroughly we apprehend the length, 

 depth and breadth of that error, the sooner 

 and more effectually we will be able to recon- 

 cile ourselves to their presence, and the injur- 

 ies we sustani. through their occasional depre- 

 dations. Can it be possible that the teeming 

 millions of insects, and their almost endless 

 varieties, in habit, form and local occupation 

 would have been permitted by creative wis- 

 dom, had they been an entirely useless factor 

 in the economy of nature? The importance 

 and the power of a factor in the economy of 

 creation, is not to be measured by its size and 

 the simplicity of its organic form, but the 

 accumulation and the tangibility of its visible 

 results. Even in cases where results are not 

 immediately and distinctly apprehended, we 

 may be able to judge of their character and 

 extent, by virture of those anlogous pheno- 

 mena, through which we approximately 

 reason from the known to the unknown. Ad- 

 mitting for the sake of illustration that the 

 simple pohip whose massed millions are in- 

 strumental in laying the solid foundations and 

 building up the vast superstructures of shoals, 

 reefs, islands and peninsulas, are insects, we 

 are compelled to recognize their accumulated 

 labors as ends that could not be accomplished 

 by any other means; and although their sub- 

 marine habitations may culminate in hidden 

 obstructions that are occasionally disastrous 

 to human interest, and even to human life, 

 still on the whole, we are compelled to ac- 

 knowledge them as benefactors of the human 

 family. 



We are not to contemplate an inscd or any 

 other animal, no matter how iusigniticant it 

 may appear, as an atom isolated from the gen- 

 eral plan of creation, but as an integral part 

 of a whole, and as being more or less inti- 

 mately related to some other part or parts for 

 which it has a natural affinity. In discussing 

 the subject of our insect friends, I do not 

 mean a friendship based on those affinities 

 which are the outbirths of fraternal .sympathy, 

 but rather those which are impelled by carnal 

 proclivity, for the insects that are the most 

 friendly to the human family are those which 

 are carnivorous in their habits, and especially 

 those which prey upon the bodies of their fel- 

 low insects, and hence are incidentally the 

 friends of humanity. 



It is true that among insects as a whole, 

 there are but few comparatively that are a 

 direct benefit to the human family, and if we 

 were altogether ignorant of the manner of 

 utilizing these, they might become a positive 

 evil. For instance, there is no insect in the 

 long catalogue of these animals that is a more 

 voracious devourer of certain kinds of vegeta- 

 tion than the Sericaria mori, or common 

 "Silkworm." and yet the aggregate product 

 of this animal constitutes one of the greatest 

 factors in the commercial, manufacturing 

 and domestic interests of our country ; and, it 

 is ju.st possible that amongst our most de- 



*Rcatl before the State Horticultural Soeiotvat Harris- 

 burg, January ISth, 1SS3, by Dr. S. S. Kathvon. 



structive species, there would be more than a 

 compensation for all the evil they do, if we 

 knew how to utilize them. Whether the Apis 

 meUifica, or " Ilcmey-bee," is guilty of the 

 charges brought against it in recent years or 

 not, it is very certain that the production of 

 honey and wax by these industrious little ani- 

 mals compensates in a single year ten thousand 

 times the value of ali the fruit they destroy. 

 No man owning a grapery could concentrate 

 the fruit thereof into a more valuable pro- 

 duct than honey and wax, and none the uses 

 of which are involved in less doubt. In its 

 very worst aspect after all, the only legiti- 

 mate basis of complaint is that one, man may 

 be involimtarily compelled to feed another 

 man's bees. If the same man owns Itoth the 

 fruit and the bees, he could not well make 

 more out of it than the bees can. 



The insects that produce "Cochineal," 

 " Gum-lac," "Cautharides," and " Nutgalls," 

 are no benefit to the plants and trees upon 

 which they live and thrive, and yet they 

 themselves, or the substances they produce or 

 cause to be produced, are of great commercial 

 value, and hence a direct benefit to the human 

 family. The first two named of these pro- 

 ducts are exclusively foreign, but within the 

 limits of the United States, the last two 

 named are quite abimdant in special localities. 

 Of the cantharides, especially, we have spe- 

 cies whose vesicatorial power is equal, or 

 nearly equal, to the for eignspecies, and that 

 they have not become an article of commer- 

 cial traffic is, perhaps, because they are not 

 foreign, or, because among the abundance of 

 other more profitable occupations, the bus- 

 iness of gathering them would not pay. 

 Even the destructive Locusts— the allies of 

 our Rocky Mountain species— are often con- 

 sidered a God-send to the people where they 

 most plentifully abound— at least ,to those 

 tribes who value the insects more than they 

 do the plants upon which they feed. It would 

 not be surprising if the next hundred years 

 would develop some use for the much dis- 

 pised "Colorado potato beetle,'.' but specula- 

 tion aside, real instances of insect utility exist 

 abinidantly. 



In the economy of nature there are a large 

 number of species consisting of millions of in- 

 dividuals, in the insect world, that are more 

 than merely indirectly beneficial to the human 

 family, if they are not directly so ; and these 

 are more or less identified with the sanitary 

 conditions of the country they inhabit ; and 

 these may appropriately be termed insect 

 Scavenyers. The Carrion-Beetles, Burying- 

 Beetles, Bone- Beetles, Blow-Flies, Housc- 

 Flies, and even the Mosquitoes, are entitled 

 to more consideration than is ever accorded 

 to them by those who only view them from a 

 noxious, or pestiferous stand-point. It is true 

 that in commvmities where dead carcasses and 

 putrescent substances are recpnred to be rc- 

 movP«l, buried, or deodorized, through muni- 

 cipsil regulations, the services of these insect 

 friends may not be as apparent as in those 

 districts where such regulations do not exist; 

 but under any circumstances, there is always 

 an abundance of decomposing animal and 

 Tegetable substances, which the eye of otlicial 

 vigilance either overlooks or does not detect, 

 that become the prey of scavenging insects. 

 There are districts of country, especially in 



some parts of South America, where the at- 

 mosphere is so pure, and the sun so hot, that 

 animal carcasses not devoured by carnivorous 

 birds, rapidly dry up, and, as it were become 

 muinmyized ; and hence, the scavenger insects 

 of those districts are correspondingly limited 

 in number and species. The reason is, that 

 the period required for the development of 

 their larva; is too brief, preventing them from 

 maturing and undergoing their pupal trans- 

 formations. Many insects in our own country 

 are defeated in their development, during a 

 protracted hot and dry season. No one has 

 more practical evidence of this than the ama- 

 teur who attempts to rear insects from the 

 eggs or the larva to their perfect maturity. 

 He will often find himself defeated through 

 drought, resulting from neglect to preserve 

 the proper conditions. 



Much as people may feel themselves annoy- 

 ed by the presence of domestic flies, tlesh- 

 flies, or even the common horse-fly, the func- 

 tions these animals have performed before 

 they become flies at all, far transcends any 

 possible injury they are capable of inflicting 

 as mere flies. Even the dreaded female mos- 

 quito, as a purifier of stagnant ponds and 

 pools, and thus preventing putrid odors that 

 miffht arise from them, confers an undoubted 

 benefit to those who live in proximity to such 

 localities, which compensates a thousand 

 times the portion of human blood she appro- 

 priates. 



Take for instance the order Coleoptera 

 which includes the Shield-winged or Beetle 

 tribes— and although it also includes the noto- 

 rious "Curculio," the Apple-tree borer, the 

 Elm-leaf beetle, the various Flea-beetles, etc., 

 yet it includes in a special sense, many of our 

 most conspicuous insect friends, and friends 

 too that are not among the minute and almost 

 invisible tribes. At the head and front of 

 this order in classification at least, are usually 

 placed the Cicindelnns, commonly called 

 "Tiger Beetles," and not nearly so well 

 known, even by this name as they ought to 

 be. Considering them as both fliers and 

 runners — independent of their anatomical 

 structure, they stand at the head of their 

 class. They feed altogether on other insects, 

 both in their larva; and mature states, and 

 like a tiger, they are constantly " watching 

 and waiting " for the approach of their insect 

 prey, and when it don't approach they go in 

 pursuit of it. The larva; occupies a perpen- 

 dicular burrow, its head even with the surface 

 of the ground, and there it secures its prey by 

 strategy, being a poor runner. The Caloso- 

 mans, large and brilliant ground beetles, 

 mainly noctural in their habits. Both the 

 mature beetle and its larva are voracious 

 destroyers of noxious and other insects, 

 prowling at night, and even climbing trees 

 and shrubs in pursuit of them. The Carabi- 

 dans generally, the type of which is the genus 

 Carnbus are of a similar char.acter. ■ These 

 are the insects of which it has been recorded 

 that they have been colonized by some 

 French gardeners, with good results. Many 

 of the Coccinellans, or Lady-birds, both as 

 larva and imago, are well-known destroyers of 

 other insects, especially the Aphids, or plant- 

 lice, and have been grouped together under 

 the name of Aphidiphagans. 

 The order Nextroptera also contains many 



