Yalabusha county, Mississippi.—“This season has been the most remarkable one in the memory of our planters. All crops have failed more or less. The boll-worm and cotton caterpillar have done much injury."

Tensas parish, Louisiana.-The second crop of cotton caterpillars (Anomis xylina) commenced their ravages about the 5th of September, and by the 15th the entire crop of the county was stripped of its leaves.

Atchison, Kansas.-"On the 11th of September we were visited by an innumerable host of grasshoppers, which are now devouring everything that remains green. Our late corn, our late potatoes, our young wheat crop, and our garden vegetables are being consumed. Last year they destroyed the crops of Colorado, and this spring those of Montana, the grasshoppers in each case having made their appearance the fall previously. In the month of May or first of June these grasshoppers were at Junction, about 300 miles west of Fort Kearney. On the 1st of October they reached Fort Kearney. On the 1st of September they were in Riley county, 100 miles west of Atchison. They move in a direction south of east."

Conejos county, Colorado.-"In June there appeared millions of grasshoppers in this valley, threatening, in some districts, to destroy all vegetation, but before they could spread over the entire country a green fly made its appearance, which truly proved our salvation. As I found upon close examination, thèse flies deposited their eggs in the joint or neck of the grasshoppers, which, after two weeks' time, caused their death. The same examination was made by the military officers at Fort Garland, with like results." A request was made that specimens of these "green flies" should be sent to the department for examination; but as yet none have been received, so that it cannot be positively known whether they are parasites which will eventually prove a check to the grasshopper.

Letters from Wisconsin gave accounts of the ravages of cut-worms and grasshoppers in that State.

A New Jersey correspondent refers to the tree caterpillars as entirely destroying orchards in his vicinity, and remarks that, "owing to dense ignorance among the people, no attempt is made to prevent them except when, as larvæ, they are committing their ravages, and even then some of the pious will turn up their eyes and talk about the things as a 'plague sent by Providence.""

INSECTS AND THEIR USES.

Some people look upon all insects as injurious, while the truth is that many of them are the best friends the farmer has, and instead of preying upon his crops they are busily employed during their brief existence in ridding his fields, orchards, and gardens of other insects which are really destructive. It is, therefore, of the greatest consequence to be able to discriminate between friends and foes-to know which to kill and which to spare. Also, in the economy of nature, insects are of great importance as food for birds, fish, and animals, which in their turn become food for man. The caterpillar is devoured by the carabus or an ichneumon fly; these are eaten by insectivorous birds, which either serve us as food or enliven our gardens and groves with their melodious songs. Without insects these birds could not exist, and, although they are not absolutely necessary to human existence, it must be acknowledged we should miss their songs and their cheering presence.

Fishes also live almost altogether on animal food. The gnat or mosquito is taken from the surface of the water by the minnow, and this in turn is swallowed by some trout or pickerel, which next makes its appearance as a great delicacy upon our table. Several animals eat insects, and, as will subsequently be shown, man himself has been glad to accept them as an article of diet, both in the Old World and the New. Insects are also of great use in the fructification of plants and trees by conveying the pollen from one flower to another, especially where

the plants are too far apart for the pollen to be wafted by the wind. Observe in the spring how flies, bees, and other insects dive into the flower cups, and having feasted on the nectar within, emerge covered with the fecundating dust or pollen, which they deposit on the pistils of other plants, fertilizing and making them fruitful, when, perhaps, if left to the chance of winds they might provo seedless and barren.

Insects are very useful as scavengers in removing decayed vegetable and animal substances which would otherwise taint the air and cause sickness. Linnæus states that three flesh flies and their descendants would eat up a dead horse much sooner than a lion could; and we all know how soon a putrid carcass is removed by maggots, which are the larvæ of large flesh flies. Water larvæ purify the element they live in by devouring the smaller animalcula and the vegetable matter always abounding in stagnant water, and which would otherwise create a noxious atmosphere. Linnæus says, "This will readily appear if an experiment be made by filling two vessels with putrid water, leaving the larvæ in one and taking them from the other; for that with the larvæ in will be found pure and without smell or bad odor, while the other will remain foul and putrid smelling." See also a well-kept aquarium, in which the exact balance has been kept between vegetable and animal life, and the water will be found perfectly clear and free from minute confervæ.

Some insects are of great utility in the arts, for medicinal purposes, for dyes or coloring matter, and in producing silk. These may be noted as follows: The honey bee (Apis mellifica) yields wax and honey. Many other varieties are known besides the common bee of this country. Kirby and Spence state that in Madagascar the Apis unicolor is domesticated and produces a greenish honey. Apis Indica is cultivated in India, and A. adansonii in Senegal. The Egyptian bee, found also in Syria and Arabia, (Apis fascicata,) is one-third smaller than our common hive bee, which it resembles, but has the corselet and shield yellow. This bee was successfully introduced into Germany in 1863, and carried from thence to England in 1866, the present year. Fabricius thinks that other bees in the East and West Indies (Apis acraensis, laboressa, &c.,) might be domesticated with greater advantage than even our common honey bee. This, however, is to be doubted, as the insects would probably die from the effects of our cold winters.

The Rev. J. Fletcher, in his "Brazil and the Brazilians," gives a list of fourteen different species or varieties of Brazilian wild bees which produce honey; some of this honey, however, is quite sour, but the majority of it is good and sweet. Most of these bees are very small and stingless. He mentions, also, in the same note two kinds of wasps which produce honey.

A section of a hollow tree containing a swarm of stingless bees (Trigona) from South America was placed in a sheltered position in the propagating garden of this department; but the bees exhibited very little energy during the summer, and in autumn gradually died off, leaving the trunk with only a small quantity of coarse, dark wax, and no honey at all in it.

The Italian bee (Apis ligustica-Spinola) has, however, been recently introduced, and promises to be a valuable acquisition to this country. The bees are said to be more laborious and less inclined to sting than the common bee, from which they may be distinguished by broad orange rings on the base of the abdomen. The American Bee Journal of this year (1866) states that "those workers are pure whose first three abdominal rings are bright orange or buff, the first being slightly, the second more strongly, and the third broadly, bordered with black." The queen is more fully and more brightly colored than either drones or workers. Her abdominal rings have scarcely a perceptible margin of black; those in which the orange color is greatly wanting are degenerate, having a portion of common or black blood.

Bees are frequently termed by the western Indians the white man's fly, as the

common broad-leafed plantain is called by them the white man's footstep, both making their appearance as civilization encroaches upon the Indian hunting grounds.

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A species of ant in South America also produces a kind of honey, or sweet substance so called. The abdomen of the insect is distended like a small and in it the honey is secreted. The ant, however, must be crushed so as to rupture the body before the honey can be obtained.

The culture of bees, in some countries, is very extensive and profitable. In the Ukrain, it is stated by an old author, some peasants possess from 400 to 500 beehives; and Niebuhr states that on the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, he fell in with a convoy of 4,000 hives, which were being transported from a region where the season of flowers was past to one where the season was later. Many other nations transport their bees from place to place to find more abundant food for them. A great amount of honey is made in this country, but large quantities are also imported from the West Indies and other places.

Wax is not gathered from plants by the bee, but is produced by secretion in the form of small scales, which exude from between the rings of the abdomen. This fact was discovered by Hübner, who fed a swarm of bees exclusively on honey and water, and found that they formed a comb consisting of wax. White wax is common wax bleached by exposing it in thin slices to the combined influences of light, air, and moisture, after which it is remelted and run into moulds. Wax is also produced by other insects. The female of the Coccus cerifera, or wax insect of China, makes a secretion of that nature for the protection of her young. This wax is not common as a commercial product.

The cochineal insect is well known as producing dye or coloring matter. It is a native of South America, where it lives upon the nopal, a species of prickly pear, but in other countries feeds upon a variety of other plants of the cactus family. The male alone has wings. The female is wingless, and attaches herself to the leaf upon which she feeds. Cochineal, as imported, is in the form of little shrivelled grains, covered with a whitish bloom. These are merely the dried bodies of the female insects, which have been killed by boiling water or by oven or stove heat. Those killed by dry heat, and having the most white powder on them, are said to be of the best quality. It has been calculated that it takes 70,000 of these small insects to make a pound. This useful insect was introduced into Gaudaloupe and St. Domingo in 1809, and in 1826-27 to Cadiz, in Spain, and to the Canary islands. It is reported to have been introduced into Florida, near Fernandina, some years ago; but in 1855 no traces of the insect could be discovered. Leunis states that, in 1850, 800,000 pounds of rough cochineal were imported from southern Spain to England; and, in 1856, the product of the Canaries is estimated at 1,500,000 pounds, having increased to that figure from S pounds in 1831. In 1865, 807,646 pounds were imported into the United States, the value of which was calculated at $343,668. Cochineal has been introduced into Algeria, where it is said to succeed very well. As a dyeing material, this article has lately been somewhat supplanted by the aniline colors, an organic alkaloid obtained from coal-tar. Carmine is prepared from the cochineal.

It was thought at one time that the southern red bug, or cotton stainer, so called from its beautiful red color, was capable of producing a brilliant dyeing material, and experiments were made by an able chemist; but it seems to have proved worthless. Before the true cochineal was introduced into Europe, another insect, the Coccus ilicis, known also as the chermes, was used for dyes. It was found upon a small species of evergreen oak, common in the south of France, Algeria, and on the shores of the Mediterranean. This insect also produces a blood-red or crimson dye, and it is said that the imperishable red colors of Brussels and other Flemish tapestries are procured from it. The grains or balls do not resemble cochineal, but are more like small galls. The insect forms for it

self a small cocoon, in which its eggs are deposited, and it is the whole mass of this cocoon which constitutes the chermes of commerce.

Another insect, the Coccus polonicus, is very abundant in Poland, and is extensively exported from that country into Turkey, where it is used for dyeing red. This insect feeds upon a species of polygonum, a plant of the buckwheat family.

Lac is the product of an insect, the Coccus lacca, which feeds upon the Indian fig, Ficus indica, and the Ficus religiosa or sacred fig. Gum lac is gathered in large quantities from these trees, and from other trees also. The female insect is wingless, and generally attaches herself to the bark of the branches. In making the little puncture to fix herself to the spot a great quantity of vegetable matter exudes from the wound, and eventually surrounds the insect, her eggs and larvæ producing on the branch an irregular broad mass, which, when broken, presents a resinous appearance. This is the gum lac of commerce. Stick lac is the resin as taken from the tree, still incrusting the small twig around which it was formed. Seed lac is the small pieces of the broken resin. White shell lac is made of the broken lac, softened in hot water and pressed into thin flat cakes. If stick lac be broken and examined minutely, in the middle of the resin will be discovered the body of the dead insect, and in the little holes produced by this body a minute drop of red fluid, which, being extracted, constitutes the lac dye. It is brought into market in the form of hard cakes, of a dirty purple color, which are used for scarlet, carmine, and other red dyes. Upwards of 1,500 tons of dye and resin are annually imported into England from the East Indies. In 1865 the amount of lac, seed lac, and stick lac imported into this country was 36,117 pounds, worth $3,554; and of lac dye, &c., about 257,000 pounds, worth $43,041.

Shell lac, dissolved in alcohol, forms an excellent coating for amputated branches and for wounds of fruit trees, making a waterproof artificial skin, under which the wood grows till the wound is healed. Lac is also used to stiffen the bodies of hats before the silk is put on; but its greatest use at one time was for making sealing wax, which is done by mixing it with Venetian turpentine, a little Peruvian balsam, and then coloring it with vermilion.

The Spanish blister fly, Cantharis vesicatoria, an insect feeding on the ash, lilac, rose, and poplar, is found in Spain, Italy, France, Russia, and also in the west of Asia. Those from Russia are considered the most valuable, and may readily be distinguished from others by their great size and by their color, which approaches that of copper. These insects make their appearance annually in May or June, and are collected from the trees and killed by plunging them into diluted vinegar, or exposing in sieves to the vapor of boiling vinegar and then drying them. When perfectly dry they are packed in casks or boxes, lined with paper, and kept as much as possible from moisture and exposure to the atmosphere. There are several native species of cantharides in this country, which, according to the United States Dispensatory, have been used as substitutes for the C. vesicatoria, and found to be equally efficient. These insects are generally known as the potato insect. They feed in swarms on the foliage of the potato, sometimes destroying whole fields in a few days. These might readily be gathered in scoop nets of muslin, and, if a market could be found, be made profitable, at the same time destroying a public pest. Lytta vittata, or striped potato fly; L. cinerea, ash colored; L. marginata, or margined; and L. atrata, or black potato fly, are the most common and most destructive. The Dispensatory also speaks of Lytta nuttali as bidding fair, at some future period, to become an object of much importance in the western country, as on the plains of the Missouri it was found by Major Long's party to be so numerous, feeding upon the scanty grass, that they were swept away by bushels in order to clear a place for camping. It is said to surpass the Spanish fly in size and splendor, being quite a large insect, with the head of a deep green color, thorax golden green, and wing cases red or

golden purple. Those in the collection of the museum, however, vary much in color, but are all more or less of a golden green metallic hue on the head and thorax, and a beautiful red or copper tint on the wing covers. Lancaster states that from thirty to forty thousand pounds of blister flies are imported into England every year.

The galls of commerce come to us in the form of small round balls, of a dark color, and varying in size from a pea to a marble. These galls are produced by a small membranous-winged fly, Cynips quercifolii of Linn., or Diplolepis galle tinctoria of Geoffrey. This insect or gall-fly pierces the shoot or young bough of a small oak, and deposits an egg in the wound. It is thought that a peculiar fluid is instilled into the puncture which irritates the part; the egg, also, growing within the gall or excrescence, becomes a footless white grub, the true larva of the gall fly. It feeds on the vegetable matter around it, thus forming a cavity or oval cell inside of the excrescence. After some time the larva changes to the pupa, and finally emerges a perfect gall fly from a hole gnawed through its covering by the insect itself. It then punctures a branch or leaf, lays its egg, and dies. Those galls are most valued which are without holes, as then the fly has not escaped. These are called blue, green, or black galls, while those which have been perforated by the insect are less valued, are gathered later, and are called white galls.

Galls are imported principally from Smyrna and Aleppo, by which latter name they are usually known, although they are also imported from many other places. They are used in coloring black, and form one of the principal ingredients in making ink.

For writing-ink the Aleppo galls are well bruised, and macerated with water, gum-arabic, and loaf sugar, with sulphate of iron and green copperas crushed, and all together left for some time before use. In 1850 upwards of 270 tons of oak galls were brought to the British market, aside from those imported from other places. It is probable that many of the galls found growing on our native oaks might be used for the same purposes. Our native gall flies, however, are attacked by numerous parasitical hymenopterous insects, which deposit their eggs in the larva in the gall. These eggs become grubs, devour the rightful possessor of the gall, and then make their exit as winged flies, to lay their eggs in other gall insects. Any amateur naturalist may easily satisfy himself that galls are produced by insects if he will open one of the excrescences growing on our native oaks. A small whitish worm will be found in the centre. This is the larva of the gall fly. If a perfect gall be preserved in a state of proper warmth and moisture, the flies will make their appearance. Galls are frequently found on many other trees, and on shrubs and herbaceous plants. The common blackberry is, in some places, particularly subject to them.

Silk, another important article of commerce, is produced by the caterpillar of a small insignificant looking moth, (Bombyx mori.) It is said by some that this insect is a native of China, but Leunis states that it originally came from the province of Serica, in southern Asia, where, in autumn, the female lays from three to five hundred eggs upon the body of the white mulberry tree. It is claimed that the silk culture was known as a branch of industry in China 2,700 years before the Christian era. It then spread to Thibet, and was afterwards made known to the Greeks through their wars with Persia. It is said that these insects were first introduced into Constantinople by two Nestorian monks in 555. A reward having been promised for the worms which produce silk, these monks secreted some of the eggs in a hollow cane; this was at the risk of their lives, the penalty for exporting them from China at that time being death. Henry IV introduced silk culture into France in 1601, and Frederick the Great into Prussia

in 1700.

The natural history of the silk-worm is much the same as that of several of our common native moths. The eggs are hatched by heat of the atmosphere, or