THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 





tical results," when he says " the truest in- 

 terest of the enlarged propagation offish, and 

 the immense increase of food which we anti- 

 cipate from artificial methods and their auxi- 

 liaries, that we should now begin to consider 

 seriously the economic as the chief of 'prac- 

 tical results.'" 



Fish hatching commenced in Canada about 

 fifteen years ago; now there are eleven govern- 

 ment fish hatcheries, eight of which are occu- 

 pied in developing salmon ova only; two are 

 employed in hatching palmon, white fish and 

 trout eggs, and one hatches whitefish and pike- 

 perch, and the entire cost of these public 

 establishments to date is $259,400. We will 

 look further into this matter in a future issue, 

 but in the meantime it is evident that Mr. 

 Whitcher has given a clear statistical state- 

 ment showing that we have been wasting 

 money without reaping the fruits. 



PROTECTION FROM INSECT ATTACK. 



Mr. J. A. Lintner, the New York State 

 Entomologist has sent us a pamphlet wherein 

 he propounds a new principle in protection 

 from insect attack. He says " it will be 

 readily conceded that the use of preventives, 

 whenever practicable, is more economical, 

 more effective, and often more convenient than 

 a resort to remedies." His object is to pre- 

 vent insects from depositing their eggs on 

 their food plants, and he says it can be and 

 has been done with perfect success in main- 

 instances. By applying to the plant or to the 

 soil certain odorous substances which are dis- 

 agreeable to the insect, ami therefore to drive 

 it away ; contending that the larger proportion 

 of the insect world are guided in their natural 

 habits by the sense of smell. The popular 

 idea that many insects attacking vegetation 

 select their food plants whereon to deposit their 

 eggs by the sense of sight is evidently errone- 

 ous, and not in accordance with his investiga- 

 tions. He has watched " the incomprehensible 

 acuteness shown by an insect in the discovery 



of the particulai I plant upon which 



alone the young caterpillars could feed, in the 

 discovery of a single individual of a rare 

 species occurring in a certain locality, and 

 growing in such a manner as effectually m 

 hide it from human observation. When its 



• Of food plants extends beyond a ?] 

 to all the members of a genus, how could it 

 detect all of the greatly differing form-'.' 

 When a still broader range embraces the 

 several genera of an extended order, a still 

 greater variety of form are presented, which 

 the rude insect brain must group and class 

 and claim within its province. How amazing 

 such knowledge without previous instruction. 

 It had no parents living as in the class f 

 Vertebrates, which might teach it by example. 

 It had no ancestors a whit wiser than itself 

 from which to learn. The deposit of tin- 

 in its place may have been but the second 

 voluntary act in its imago life, regarding that 

 of flight for the purpose as the first. Perhaps 

 a plant from some distant shoie, of which not 

 one of its ancestry could have any knowledge, 

 is brought within its range of wing; its Sight 

 is unhesitatingly directed to it, and its precious 

 burden of egg?, without a shadow of mistrust. 

 is at once comniittted to its leaves. Such 

 knowledge has never been attained by our 

 most distinguished botanists, ami it is beyond 

 the scope of human intellect. We have called 

 its displays instinct, a word conveniently 

 framed to cover manifestations in other classes 

 of animated beings which we are utterly un- 

 able to explain. As a partial explanation of 

 these wonders, it has been suggested that to 

 the insect world mav have been given senses 

 differing in number and in kind from those 

 that we possess, lint all the wonderful pheno- 

 mena attendant upon insect oviposition by 

 selection, is readily explained under the suj- 

 position that it is guided and controlled by the 

 sense of smell, and notwithstanding the 

 laborious investigations in insect structure, 

 conducted through a century by some of our 

 most distinguished scientists, we are utterly 



