ECLOGUE, a short pastoral dialogue in verse. The word is conjectured to be derived from the Greek verb [Greek: eklegein], to choose. An eclogue, perhaps, in its primary signification was a selected piece. Another more fantastic derivation traces it to [Greek: aix], goat, and [Greek: logos], speech, and makes it a conversation of shepherds. The idea of dialogue, however, is not necessary for an eclogue, which is often not to be distinguished from the idyll. The grammarians, in giving this title to Virgil's pastoral conversations (_Bucolica_), tended to make the term "eclogue" apply exclusively to dialogue, and this has in fact been the result of the success of Virgil's work. Latin eclogues were also written by Calpurnius Siculus and by Nemesianus. In modern literature the term has lost any distinctive character which it may have possessed among the Romans; it is merged in the general notion of pastoral poetry. The French "Églogues" of J.R. de Segrais (1624-1701) were long famous, and those of the Spanish poet Garcilasso de La Vega (1503-1536) are still admired.
ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY, the name given to the study of insects based on their relation to man, his domestic animals and his crops, and, in the case of those that are injurious, of the practical methods by which they can be prevented from doing harm, or be destroyed when present. In Great Britain little attention is paid to this important branch of agricultural science, but in America and the British colonies the case is different. Nearly every state in America has its official economic entomologists, and nearly every one of the British crown colonies is provided with one or more able men who help the agricultural community to battle against the insect pests. Most, if not all, of the important knowledge of remedies comes from America, where this subject reaches the highest perfection; even the life-histories of some of the British pests have been traced out in the United States and British colonies more completely than at home, from the creatures that have been introduced from Europe.
Some idea of the importance of this subject may be gained from the following figures. The estimated loss by the vine _Phylloxera_ in the Gironde alone was £32,000,000; for all the French wine districts £100,000,000 would not cover the damage. It has been stated on good evidence that a loss of £7,000,000 per annum was caused by the attack of the ox warble fly on cattle in England alone. In a single season Aberdeenshire suffered nearly £90,000 worth of damage owing to the ravages of the diamond back moth on the root crops; in New York state the codling moth caused a loss of $3,000,000 to apple-growers. Yet these figures are nothing compared to the losses due to scale insects, locusts and other pests.