GARDEN INSECTS. 



175 



no untruth to say that each year thousands of the most useful 

 kinds are sacrificed at the shrine of Ignorance. Some may 

 urge that with so vast an order as the Coleoptera it is impossible 

 for the gardener to decide which are useful and which injurious. 

 This fact, however, remains : the most useful of all the beetles 

 are without exception those most commonly met with in gardens, 

 and thus they may be readily identified. This also holds good 

 with many insects belonging to other orders. Nowadays one 

 often hears the older gardeners say that in their time not half so 

 much was heard of the injuries inflicted by insects upon crops. 

 To a certain extent this is correct, and the fact is readily 

 accounted for. The area of land under cultivation is far greater 

 now than at any previous period in the history of horticulture, 

 and in the process, the beautifully delicate balance of Nature 

 has been rather rudely disturbed, and we are suffering 

 accordingly. 



Within the space of such a paper as this it is not possible to 

 do justice to a subject which opens up such a wide field. My 

 object will be rather to stimulate the coming generation of 

 gardeners to greater things, and to prosecute still further the 

 studies which the entomologists of our day have done so much 

 to promote. Horticulture and entomology are very intimately 

 associated — so intimately in fact that to be successful in the 

 one the gardener must have more than a passing acquaintance 

 with the other. There is a wide field for investigation in which 

 at present the labourers are all too few. 



In making a few brief remarks upon some of the more 

 important orders which go to make up the Class Insecta, it will be 

 well to commence with the beetles. Their extreme diversity of 

 form, size, colour, and marking, their peculiarities of structure, 

 their divergent habits, the conditions under which they are 

 found, their wide geographical range, and their enormous 

 numbers, invest them with more than an ordinary interest to 

 the student of Nature. This exalted position among insects is 

 one to which perhaps the majority of entomologists think them 

 entitled, though there are a very large number who aver that 

 the HymenojJtera, on account of their higher development and 

 superior intelligence, are entitled to first rank. The question, 

 however, is a vexed one and has but little practical bearing upon 

 the subject. 



