Plants as insect destroyers

Abstract

Being much attached to Botany, and, in a less degree perhaps to Entomology, I have put together a few notes, bearing upon both these sciences, and bringing before you one out of the many points, at which the two great families of plants and insects cross each other's paths— one, it must be added, in which the latter get decidedly the worst of it. We all know, to what an enormous extent insects are dependent on plants for support. In the supply both of food and protection Flora proves herself a veritable mother to her humble friends. But there is a dark side in the character of even this gentle deity, whom we are apt to associate with all that is cheerful and smiling; and it is astonishing to see in how many ways and under what different aspects she puts forth her "insecticidal" functions. Directly or indirectly the members of the Vegetable Kingdom help largely to thin the ranks of the little creatures which visit them.