﻿FIELD AND FORKS'!'. 69 



Euschistes Punctipes. — This insect has been winning a name 

 in Virginia, by preying upon the Colorado potato beetle. We do not 

 remember of seeing its name in the list of the foes of "the spearman" 

 before, and so hasten to enroll it. 



EDITORIAL PENCILLINGS. 



The grasshoppers have again come down upon portions of the States 

 lying west of the Mississippi, and besides doing a great deal of damage, 

 have deposited their eggs, literally by the million, for the next sea- 

 son's broods. It is only last year that they laid waste the farms and 

 homesteads of the rich Missouri Valley, bringing untold suffering and 

 loss, and the .prospect now seems good for another terrible scourge in 

 1877. 



Our entomologists have studied the insect's habits as far as limited 

 opportunity would allow ; the farmers have certainly done all they 

 could do in the matter, and even the legislatures of some of our western 

 States have voted money for bounties for the destruction of the insects, 

 when upon their borders; but from some unknown cause our national 

 government seems to close its eyes to the fact that there is anything left 

 for it to do in the matter. When an appropriation of $30,000 was asked 

 last year, with which to buy seeds for the sufferers, it was given, as it 

 should have been, but when scientific men, looking not to the imme- 

 diate present, but to the future of our country, ask that a commission 

 be authorized to try to find the source of this torre:it of destruction 

 that, it seems, is to sweep down upon our farming lands year after 

 year, and there seek the remedy, the matter is bandied about in com- 

 mittees, this and that amendment is proposed, it is wound up in red tape, 

 and finally like the coin in the hands of the prestidigitator, it disappears 

 altogether, and nothing is done. Well, it is not strange ; there are 

 .few farmers among our legislators, and comparatively speaking no 

 men of science, and consequently no one to take a genuine inter- 

 est in the matter. Congress, notwithstanding, has a duty to perform, 

 and the sooner it is accomplished, the better it will be for the firming 

 interest of the west, and for the country at large. Let a commission 

 be authorized, for one year, or several, and let two or three practical, 

 economic entomologists, that are not afraid of rough field work, be 

 appointed on it, appropriate money sufficient for the work, and results 



