INSECTS v. MAN.

Forest and Bird, Issue 21, 1 July 1930, Page 14

INSECTS v. MAN.

Professor Thomson, writing in the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture in Great Britain, says:— ' When we think of the legions of plant-bugs (Rhynchota), the hosts of hungry larvae, such as caterpillars, leather-jackets, wireworms, the minute Diptera like the frit-fly, the vegetarian beetles like cockchafers and weevils, besides saw-flies and scaleinsects, and the frankly destructive tribe of locusts, we realise that their increase is a continual menace to the kingdom of man, which, after all, depends as yet on green plants of the field. If the cloud of injurious insects should thicken for a few years the consequences would be disastrous beyond telling. . . . Fortunately for men, insects are often against insects —ladybird beetles against green-flies and ichneumons against caterpillars, and so on; spiders, frogs, toads, lizards, and other animals do their bit; but, on the whole, what matters most is that there should be an abundance of insectivorous birds, for they form the most important of all checks to the multiplication of injurious insects. •_ • • It is absolutely certain that every reduction of birds that feed on injurious insects means a loss to agriculture.”