ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
7 
out the parenthesis in italics ; and therefore all that he has to do, 
in order to avoid those technical names which are so distasteful to 
many, is to skip over entirely, as he reads on, every parenthesis 
(printed in italics). To the scientific reader the scientific names 
are absolutely essential, because they are part and parcel of the 
peculiar language in which he writes and speaks and thinks ; and 
because, while the scientific names are intelligible to every man of 
science, no matter whether he resides in America, in England, in 
France, or in Germany, and are the same everywhere throughout 
the whole civilized world, the English names of insects are often 
local, and differently employed by different writers and different 
States. For example: —a minute, two-winged Fly, the orange- 
colored larva of which infests the ears of wheat in the field a little 
before harvest, and which is called in English throughout New York 
and New England “ the Wheat Midge ” ( Cecidomyia tritici , Kirby), is 
called pretty generally out West “ the Red Weevil” and often 
simply “ the Weevil,” and in Pennsylvania and Maryland is pop¬ 
ularly known as “ the Milk Weevil.” Now, if I have occasion to 
talk of this insect, and call it, after the fashion of most of oui 
Illinois farmers, “ the Red Weevil ” or simply “ the Weevil,” every 
foreign entomologist, being entirely unacquainted with our local 
terms, will suppose that I am speaking of some kind of Snout 
beetle, and probably of that particular little black species (, Sito - 
philus granarius , Linnaeus), which infests such wheat as is stored m 
granaries both in this country and in Europe, and is popularly 
know in England as “ the Weevil.” But if, on the other hand, I 
give our popular Illinois name, or the English name used in Penn¬ 
sylvania, or that used in New York and New England, and add m an 
innocent little parenthesis — (printed in italics) the three 
words that form its complete scientific designation, then every 
entomologist, from one end of the world to the other, knows at a 
glance exactly what particular species I am speaking of, without 
the possibility of doubt, misconception, or confusion. Another 
instance:—I find that an insect, which will be fully treated of 
hereafter as the “ Apple-root Plant-louse” (Pemphigus pyri, Fitch,) 
and which, as I have ascertained, is doing an enormous amount of 
damage thoughout our State, destroying apple-trees by what is 
popularly known as “ rotten-roots,” is commonly called almost every- 
