REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 189 



it ! Professor Riley, whom I have already quoted several times, sums 

 the matter up briefly as follows: "Insects play a most important part 

 in the economy of nature. The average townsman, whose knowledge 

 is confined to certain lectual and household pests, can scarcely appre- 

 ciate the fact or have any other feeling than repugnance and contempt 

 for the annoying hexapods of his acquaintance. Yet, as scavengers, 

 as pollenizers of our flowers and fruits, or as food for other animals, 

 they not only vitally concern man, but philosophically considered, are 

 seen to be essential to his very existence. We receive, also, some di- 

 rect benefits from insects. They supply us with the sweetest of 

 sweets, our very best inks and dyes, and our finest robes and tapers, to 

 say nothing of various acids, lacs, and waxes ; while few, who have 

 not studied the subject, have any just idea of the importance of insects 

 and their products as articles of human diet." 



THE NECESSITY OF A KNOWLEDGE OF INSECT HABITS. 



Without a knowledge of an insect's habits and life history, but little 

 can be done towards resisting its depredations ; and until we know 

 which and what these enemies are, we cannot begin to learn about their 

 life history and habits. We are told who they are, when they have 

 been given scientific names by which they are to be known throughout 

 the civilized world wherever they may occur ; and we are prepared to 

 learn ivhat they are when they have been so intelligently described and 

 carefully figured that they can be recognized or identified by the agri- 

 cultural as well as the scientific student. When this has been accom- 

 plished, hundreds of persons, in different localities, may then be simul- 

 taneously engaged in the study of the same insect ; and each of the 

 facts concerning it can be separately recorded as discovered until a 

 sufficient number of these have been accumulated to be of use when 

 collated to determine its life history. The habits of the different spe- 

 cies of insects are so diverse as to necessitate a separate study for each 

 of them with which we have to do. Each of these life -histories is a 

 complicated one, and embraces at least four distinct forms of animal 

 existence — the egg, the larva, the pupa, and the imago — which may 

 differ so greatly, one from the other, that none but the entomologist 

 would suspect the relationship between them. One or more of these 

 forms may be so artfully hidden away, or be existing under such pe- 

 culiar circumstances, as to elude discovery for a long time, and thereby 



