50 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOaiST. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL IGNORANCE IN THE NORTH. 



The following paragraph, with a few altera- 

 tions or additions to suit the local market, is 

 now (June, '68) throughout the Northern States 

 going the rounds of the political and of the agri- 

 cultural press. We propose to show that it con- 

 tains the very quintessence of ignorance and 

 folly ; and that what it asserts to have actually 

 taken place is simply a physical impossibility": 



[Pig. 52.] 



Colors— Broivn and green. 



The seventeen year locusts have mthin a few davs 

 past made their appearance on Long Island N Y 

 The trees in the woods at White Park, about a mile 

 west of Jamaica, are being literally covered with them 

 and more are coming out of the ground. Advices from 

 the east end of Long Isl.and state that there are mil- 

 lions of them m the vicinity of Eatchaven and Faring- 

 dale. JAeij devour every thing green that comes in their 

 way, and gi-eat fear is entertained that the growinn- 

 crops will be destroyed . o " " "^o 



There is scarcely an entomologist in America 

 that has not at least once, and often for scores 

 of times, busied himself in explaining to the 

 people the wide and fundamental diflference be- 

 tween the so-called "Locusts" of the United 

 States and the " True Locusts" of Scripture and 

 [Fig. 53.] of modern Europe. The ^'s 'ii 

 latter (Fig. 52) really do 

 often " devour every green 

 thing upon the face of the 

 earth;" while the former 

 (Fig. 63)* having no jaws 

 at all to eat with, and only 

 a beak (Fig. 53 a) to suck 

 sap with, are physically in- 

 capable of eating anything 

 at all. The two kinds of 

 insects do not even belonj^ 

 CDior.-Brk, brown to ^'^^ Same order, or to 

 and orange. j-he Same graud group of 

 orders. The former are "Suckers" 

 {Haustellatci) \ ihc laXiQv are "Biters 

 (Mmtdibulata) . The former belong to 

 the order Homoptera ; the latter to the 

 order Ortlioptera. The former have their 

 front wings glassy and transparent; the lat- 

 ter have them more or less leathery and 

 opaque. The former have a mere apology 

 for antennas, which the general observer 

 would e ntirely overlook; the latter have 



* In this fignre the left winff is cropiied off close to its 

 base, to show the shape of the body. 



quite conspicuous and rather long antennae. In 

 one word, what we call "Locusts" in America 

 are called "Cicalas" or "Cicadas" in Europe; 

 and what in the old world are known as "Lo- 

 custs" are dubbed "Grasshoppers" in the 

 United States. Yet, in spite of all that we poor 

 despised bughunters can do and say on the sub- 

 ject, the people of America will probably, many 

 of them, persist until the end of time, in be- 

 lieving that a Locust is nothing but a Locust, 

 no matter what the local diflference in 

 the meaning of the term may be ; and 

 that an (American) Locust without aiiy 

 jaws at all can and often does ravage the 

 vegetable kingdom as terribly as the 

 (European) Locust, that has got good 

 stout serviceable jaws of its own. 



Shakspeare has poetically remarked, 

 that "a rose by any other name would 

 smell as sweet;" but there is a great deal 

 more in a name than Shakspeare seems to 

 have imagined. Suppose that roses were popu- 

 larly called "Skunk-cabbages" in America. 

 What lover would dare to pi-esent to his mis- 

 tress a bouquet composed of flowers bearing 

 such an unsavory appellation? Or what lady, 

 if she had such a bouquet actually presented to 

 her, would trust her nostrils within a foot of it? 

 It is just the same thing with insects. For ex- 

 ample : Because the group of bugs, which an- 

 cient Scripture and modern European writers 

 call "Locusts," are rechristened as " Grasshop- 

 pers" with us, people think comparatively but 

 little about them ; although in parts of the wide 

 region of country that intervenes between the 

 Rocky Mountains aiid the Mississippi river, 

 they have in particular seasons, for instance in 

 1866-7 and 1867-8, done fully as much damage 

 to the croi)s as the true "Locusts" of Europe 

 sometimes do in particular regions of the Old 

 "World. If, on the other hand, these same bugs 

 were called " Locusts," people would be scared 

 to death when they beard of clouds of them so 

 prodigiously numerous, that they absolutely ob- 

 scured the light of the sun. 



Conversely, because Ave in America have cho- 

 sen to call what arc properly speaking "Cica- 

 das" or "Cicalas" by the ominous name of 

 "Locusts," people have thoughtlessly jumped 

 to the conclusion, that they must necessarily 

 have the same voracious appetite as the " Lo- 

 custs," thftt as Scripture tells us formerly devour- 

 ed every green thing throughout the land of 

 Egypt. About a hundred years ago Morton in 

 New England described them as "eating itp the 

 green things, and making such a constant yell- 

 ing noise as made the woods ring of them." 



t'. 



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