1885.] L. Peringuey, Insects Injurious to Forest Trees, 8fc. 15 



INSECTS INJUEIOUS TO FOEEST TREES IN SOUTH 

 AFRICA. 



By L. Peringuey, F.Z.S., &c. 



Considerable research, has been devoted to Entomology in South 

 Africa, but the result has been mostly a nomenclature of the insect 

 fauna and scarcely anything more. 



An immense number of insects has been collected as far back as 

 the end of the last century, by travellers and naturalists such as Tie 

 Vaillant, Thunberg, Burchell, Delalande, Waalberg, and a host of 

 others and, has enriched the Museums and private collections in Europe. 

 Descriptions of many of those insects, of most of them in fact, have 

 been published ; but, so far, nomenclature alone has benefited by 

 the collecting of these men. That nomenclature is absolutely 

 necessary, is undeniable. That it has been the means already of 

 producing an immense revolution in philosophical views and ideas,* 

 cannot be doubted, for, without a nomenclature, how could the 

 examples or proofs of the theory of evolution and natural selection 

 have been presented to the mind. That words are mere symbols, 

 either material or mythical, must be recognised as a fact, and it is a 

 fact also, that, unless an animal (or a plant) is symbolised with a 

 name or a name with an animal, it would be impossible to conceive 

 am'thing like the object the philosopher speaks of. 



But nomenclature alone must not be the goal which a Zoologist 

 must aspire to reach. His object must be also the economy of the 

 animal or animals he has assumed to study, and as the study of the 

 life habits of insects injurious to forest trees in South Africa has not 

 been attended to yet, the object of this modest paper is, not naturally 

 to speak of a thing we have no knowledge of, but to sketch as it 

 were, the lines on which to proceed to arrive at some knowledge on 

 the subject. 



• If the geographical distribution of insects in Europe proper, their 

 habits, primary stage, their economy in nature are so well known 

 now-a-days, the fact is due : 1st, to the wars of the end of 

 the last and the beginning of this century which, making travelling a 

 matter of much danger, prevented, to a great extent, the arrival in 

 Europe of numerous specimens of Natural History from distant 

 countries, thus compelling the observers to resort to the fauna of their 

 native land ; and 2nd, that there are in Europe men, many men, 

 whose means or tastes enable them to prosecute their researches con 

 amove. 



1 am afraid that the same may not be said of this Colony. Pursuits 

 of different kinds tending to the same end, to which a friend of mine, 

 who is rather cynical and who calls a spade a spade, gives 

 the name of '' filthy lucre " seem to make the colonist a practi- 

 cal kind of individual, who is not, as a rule, disinclined 

 to look with a contempt somewhat allied to pity upon a collector 

 of ''bugs and flies," and if perchance a more enlightened 

 member of the Executive places a very, very modest sum on the 

 Estimates, either for the keeping of a museum, or still more seldom, 

 for investigation or researches in Natural History, it is not without 

 loud grumblings that the modicum is voted, when it is voted at all. 



These remarks are, I believe, necessary to explain how so little 



VOL. rsr. k; 



