8 
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
where in Illinois “ the Wooly Aphis.” Now, if I speak of this 
insect solely under this name, without adding its scientific name, 
every foreign entomologist, and a good many American ones besides, 
will suppose that I am referring to an entirely different kind of 
Plant-louse, which is properly called, both in America and in 
Europe, u the Wooly Aphis” (Eriosoma lanigera , Hausmann), and 
which is as different from the species misnamed “ Wooly Aphis ” in 
Illinois, as a sheep is from a goat. Whereas, if I give the scien¬ 
tific name, as well as the English name, every entomologist from 
San Francisco, in California, to Vienna, in Germany, will know 
exactly what insect I refer to. Moreover, there are already many 
purely scientific names, which pass current in the mouths of every 
fruit-grower and even of every farmer. The very name “ Aphis,” 
which I have just been referring to as current everywhere in Illi¬ 
nois, is a purely scientific name, and for that reason I have 
preferred to avoid it throughout in the body of my Report, and to 
use instead the good old homely Anglo-Saxon word “ plant-louse.” 
“ Curculio” — which is upon everybody’s tonguein Illinois, and alas ! 
also upon everybody’s plums and peaches and apples — is another 
purely scientific word, which has been popularized throughout the 
length and breadth of the United States, though in scientific lan¬ 
guage it has a much wider signification than in popular parlance, 
and is equivalent to the pure old English term “ Snout-beetle.” 
A third scientific name which has been engrafted into our tongue 
is “ Cantharides,” and it is always applied exclusively to a foreign 
species of the same genus of Blister-beetles, to which belong the 
old-fashioned Potato-bugs found for time immemorial in Illinois — 
not the new-fashioned Colorado Potato-bug (Doryphora 10-lineata , 
Say), which only invaded our State a few years ago, for that belongs 
to an entirely different group. Now, if the general reader can, 
without the least difficulty, open his mouth wide enough almost 
every day of his life to say “ Aphis” and “ Curculio” and “ Can¬ 
tharides,” why should he be scandalized, offended and annoyed by 
other scientific names ? always provided that they are printed in 
italics by way of finger-post to warn him off, as we stick up a board 
with “ DANGEROUS ” on it, where the ice is likely to break 
through in a skating-park ; and provided further that these vicious 
scientific names are properly fenced in by a parenthesis ( ), so 
