Rethinking the Enemy, An Ecological View of Pest Insects

“ In order to fight the mosquitoes successfully it is important that every one should take an interest in the popular uprising against this insect pest. And now that it is known that, besides being a nuisance, mosquitoes may be a menace to the health of the community, it is equally necessary that every one should become familiar with all that pertains to their life history so that the war against them may be successfully and intelligently carried on. ”

“ One is the mosquito, and the other is fleas.”
The boys laughed.
“Not animals, Ibee; insects,” corrected Miss Helpem. [56] “We will not have time to speak at length of the mosquito, for that would make a whole lesson in itself, but I do want to say that mosquitoes are the cause of some of our worst diseases, for they carry disease germs from one person’s blood into another’s. To destroy them, kerosene oil should be sprayed or sprinkled or poured on the surface of any stagnant water; for mosquito babies (wigglers) live in stagnant (standing) water. ”

“ Sunk in a cushioned armchair, his slippered feet on the desk, a bottle of cooling ginger pop in one hand and a cream puff in the other, he placed before his imagination the problem:
"Why the mosquito?"
The more he pondered the more he became impressed with the fact that here indubitably was one of the errors of the Almighty. Snakes destroyed rats and mice at least, but what earthly purpose was served by mosquitoes? ”

“ The common mosquito stands with its body on a horizontal line when it stings, but both kinds are poisonous and are of no use whatever. The sooner the country is cleared of such plagues the better.”
“You have done a good work, Miss Martin, by telling us how to rid the camp of mosquitoes. I ordered several barrels of unrefined petroleum oil and Jones told me this morning that they are at the freight station. He is there now with a wagon to bring them back. When he comes, we will all start in with cans and anything we can find to hold oil, to hunt mosquitoes,” remarked Uncle Ben. ”

“ What is a Cottage in the country, unless "your banks are all furnished with bees, whose murmurs invite one to sleep?" There the hives stand, like four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row. Not a more harmless insect in all this world than a bee. Wasps are devils incarnate, but bees are fleshly sprites, as amiable as industrious. You are strolling along in delightful mental vacuity, looking at a poem of Barry Cornwall's, when smack comes an infuriated honey-maker against your eyelid, and plunges into you the fortieth part of an inch of sting saturated in venom. ”

“ For the following account of the Wasp, we are indebted to Kirby and Spence; and we take this opportunity of making a general acknowledgment of our obligations to those gentlemen, for the assistance we have derived from their highly interesting treatise, in drawing up this account of the curiosities respecting insects.
Compared with hive-bees, wasps may be considered as a horde of thieves and brigands: while the bees are peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects; the wasps attack their persons, and plunder their property. ”

“ We are the newcomers on the earth, but we fume around because we find it already occupied by a host of other creatures, and we ask what right have they to be here to interfere with us! Insects existed millions of years before we attained the human form and aspirations, and they have a perfectly legitimate right to everything they feed on. Of course, it must be admitted, they do not respect the rights of private property; and therein lies their hard luck, and ours. The plant lice are well known to anyone who has a garden, a greenhouse, an orchard, or a field of grain. ”

“ Some of the small kinds carry uncommonly sharp lancets, and very potent poison. “What would these insects eat, if we did not pass this way?” becomes a natural question.
The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud, probably form the natural food of mosquitoes, and blood is not necessary for their existence. They appear so commonly at malarious spots, that their presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to more healthy localities. None appear on the high lands. On the low lands they swarm in myriads. ”

“ In a way they are scavengers, and it can not be definitely said that they may not destroy or limit some organisms that might otherwise be or become harmful to man. Could it be proved then that these stagnant water areas are necessary, it might be a question whether it is wise to war on mosquitoes until we have a more definite knowledge of the food of the wrigglers. ”

“ I would like to exchange postage stamps with any correspondent.
R. L. Preston,
P. O. Box 327, Lynchburg, Virginia.
Louise.—Your question, "Is the mosquito of any use in the great economy of nature?" has often been asked by many older and wiser than you, for it is not generally known that in their larval state mosquitoes form an important branch of nature's army of tiny scavengers. The larvæ live in the water of stagnant pools and marshes, and feed upon particles of decaying matter, and as their number is so very large, the amount they devour is considerable. ”

“ Even if man provides a hive for it, the bee has not the sense to utilise it until man takes the trouble to bring the habitation and to shake the swarm into it. If the hive should not be forthcoming the bees will establish themselves in a hollow tree, in a chimney, in the roof of a house, or in any other place that appears convenient, and then and there begin to build their combs and prepare for the reception of brood and honey. The wasp, on the other hand, more industriously sets to work to build its own house, walls and all, and the labour required for such an undertaking is enormous. ”

“ There is, of course, a contra account, especially in the minds of those who keep bees and have seen a host of wasps raiding a weak stock and carrying the hive by storm. I am far from wishing to represent the wasp as an unmitigated blessing. He is not that, and when I see a queen wasp sunning herself in the early spring days I consider it my business to kill her. I am sure that there will be enough without that one. But in preserving the equilibrium of nature the wasp has its uses, and if we wish ill to flies we ought to have a reasonable measure of tolerance for their enemy. ”

“ The more one examines into the habits of the bee and the wasp respectively, the more one is convinced that the high esteem in which the former is held by man is simply the result of man’s love for honey; and that the balance of superiority is wholly upon the side of the wasp, who is a more energetic, a more vivacious, a more industrious, and a more intelligent insect than the bee, and should on all these accounts occupy a far higher place in man’s esteem and regard than it possesses at present. ”

“ Its instinct doubtless teaches it that only a few of the autumn-born females will survive to create new colonies in the spring, and that as these females will pass the winter in a dormant state in some snug recess beyond the reach of frost, there is no occasion whatever to prepare stores of food for their use. Did the wasp endeavour to emulate the bee, and store its cells with honey, it would rightly be held up to derision as an idiot, as the only creature who imitates the folly of man in continuing to work until the last to pile up riches for others to enjoy after its death. ”

“ Solitary wasps construct small nests of clay and little stones, or else make burrows. They possess the curious habit of storing up immature—for example, caterpillars—or mature insects, or even spiders, for the benefit of their larvæ when these hatch out. The kind of victim depends upon the species of the wasp concerned, but in any case it is killed or paralysed by stinging.
Social wasps somewhat resemble social bees in their habits, but their building material, instead of being wax, is a kind of paper made of chewed wood mixed up with saliva. ”

“ This wasp stores up grey caterpillars for its young as the mason bees do, so we see that they have their use in tending to reduce the number of larvæ which prey upon our vegetables, and should be protected on that account.
An old silver-fir at the Grove, which had become decayed in the centre, became a home for countless thousands of a small species of wasp; they scooped it into endless galleries and cells, and filled them with half-dead bluebottles and other flies to serve as food for their grubs. ”

“ We can never hope to eradicate all insect life which we deplore as being deleterious to the interests of mankind, and it is mighty well that we cannot do this for the insects are as important to us as all other life, for without them we would be unable to produce the vast quantities of foods that are now dependent upon such insect life. ”

“ The parasite that preys upon its supporting plant, the insect depositing its eggs in the body of the caterpillar, the falcon pursuing the innocent dove, the tiger rending the mild-eyed antelope, and, lastly, the man who preserves his own existence by preying upon his fellow-men,--all are only the exponents of those hostile forces that are indispensable to the economy of nature. Who can venture to talk of good and evil? There is only one idea that we owe to our advanced culture,--only one varnish that bedaubs and conceals the beast in us,--regard for appearances! ”

“ Of those that do, many fall victim to the ever-present dangers of disease, insect infestation, windfall, stream erosion, and fire. Insects alone present a formidable threat to trees, for they have evolved every means of attack—chewing and mining leaves, boring into twigs, eating cambium and heartwood, sucking sap, triggering galls. If the insect world did not police itself, aided by spiders, insectivorous birds and other animals, forests and other plantlife would quickly fade before the chewing, boring, sucking horde. ”

“ The larger vertebrates, such as pangolins or parrots, may appear to be most significant because they appeal to sentiment or aesthetics. However the extinction of an as-yet unnamed insect may be of greater impact; every animal plays a role in its ecosystem, and any species loss will have an effect. ”

“ One more thing that keeps many people from the country and drives some people back to the city is the mosquito (of course there are mosquitoes in town, but we are not out as much, so we notice them less) . Mosquitoes breed or rather we breed them, in still water in which there are no fish, in pools, hollows in trees, wells, etc., and above all in old tin cans. They can no more breed without water than sharks could.
Mosquitoes do not breed in grass, but rank growths of weeds or grass may conceal small breeding puddles, and form a favorite nursery for Mamma Skeet. ”

“ With the disappearance of our birds generally, and especially the slaughter of song and other insect-eating birds both in the South and North, the destruction of the national wealth by insects forges to the front as a subject of vital importance. The logic of the situation is so simple a child can see it. Short crops mean higher prices. If ten per cent of our vegetable food supply is destroyed by insects, as certain as fate we will feel it in the increased cost of living. ”

“ According to the claims of the State Board of Horticulture, of California, no insect is in its original home a pest of sufficient gravity to menace a crop in a serious way, because nature has always placed by its side a parasite capable of holding it in check. Each time that a new enemy reveals itself in a region and begins to undergo exaggerated multiplication, its orginal country should be searched for parasites living at its expense, and these should be procured and naturalized. ”

“ And there is yet another heading under which we have to consider insects in their effect upon man, and that is in the light of pests on the crops which are grown by him. A very large percentage of all insects are vegetable feeders and, naturally enough, when large areas are planted to one crop, so as to eliminate for the insect the problem of food supply, and cultural methods lessen their natural enemies, these vegetable feeders flourish out of all proportion to their normal natural limitations. ”

“ The number of pesticide-resistant insect pest species worldwide has increased and many resist even the newest chemicals. The variety and severity of pest infestations multiply, threatening the productivity of agriculture in the areas concerned. ”

“ Seek to ensure effective prevention and progressive control of plant and animal pests and diseases, including especially those which are of transboundary nature, such as rinderpest, cattle tick, foot and mouth disease and desert locust, where outbreaks can cause major food shortages, destabilize markets and trigger trade measures; and promote concurrently, regional collaboration in plant pests and animal disease control and the widespread development and use of integrated pest management practices. ”

“ With the cultivation of extensive areas, the destruction of beneficial insects, of birds and reptiles, and their forest-homes, with the introduction of new food plants, and adaptive changes in the food-habits of insects, we favor the multiplication of our native pests, while to these we have added through commerce all the foreign marauders which can be brought with imported produce, and without the enemies which retard their increase in their own countries. ”

“ If these larvae should be allowed to develop into a mature winged insect that would lay eggs, this particular insect would multiply itself hundreds of times over and it would take many more birds than at present exist to take over the big job of keeping the balance between necessary insect life and a surplus which would be destructive to all plant life. ”

“ It is well known that different mixtures, which are at first pure and apparently free from all insect life, will, in the course of their fermentation and subsequent impurity, generate peculiar species of animalcules. Thus all water and vegetable or animal matter, in a state of stagnation and decay, gives birth to insect life; likewise all substances of every denomination which are subjected to putrid fermentation. Unclean sewers, filthy hovels, unswept streets, unwashed clothes, are therefore breeders of animalcules, many of which are perfectly visible without microscopic aid. ”