244 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Oct., 'O2 



ings, they may be misleading or actually erroneous. The very fact that 

 so many erroneous fragments do get into the journals keeps the more 

 conservative student out. He fears that until he knows he may expose 

 himself to the same "shrug" that he gives when he sees a printed error. 



After all, is not the trouble with the "younger students" merely an 

 ignorance of what has been published ? Do we not find the same things 

 repeated, again and again, simply because the writer had no idea that it 

 had been done half a dozen times before ? I realize the difficulty : good 

 entomological libraries are scarce and books cost money to print as well 

 as to buy. Full sets of the NEWS, Canadian Entomologist, Insect Life, 

 Entomologica Americana, Papilio, Psyche and many others, as well as 

 the Proceedings and Transactions of other bodies are necessary before it 

 is possible to get even a fair idea of what is known. The " younger stu- 

 dent" ignores all this, necessarily in most cases, and pitches in to record 

 what seems new and interesting. The older man wants to make sure 

 that somebody else has not done it all before ; so puts off publishing until 

 he can get time to look the matter up which he rarely does. 



What is the bearing of all this? It means a society whenever you can 

 get two men interested in insects to form one ; it means free discussion ; 

 it means a record of that discussion ; it means a discriminating editor who 

 will differentiate between actual additions to knowledge and mere dupli- 

 cations, and it means that while every student owes it to his fellows to 

 help them along by making his discoveries public, he should not assume 

 that they are new, merely because he had never known it before. 



Pests and Grease. 



BY E. J. SMITH, Natick, Mass. 







In the February number of the NEWS I saw an article on 

 " Pests and Grease," by Mr. F. W. Dod, and write to make a 

 few criticisms on the subject. 



He says "it is hardly worth while to treat any but really 

 valuable specimens after the grease has spread over the wings. ' ' 



I think differently. Of course, if one is going to use ether 

 the cost is so large that that might be a drawback, but when 

 ordinary stove gasoline at fifteen cents or thereabouts per gallon 

 is in every way just as good, the expense is reduced to a mere 

 nothing. I have used a great deal of it and always with the 

 best of results. If one has many specimens on pins to be 

 cleaned the best thing to do is to get a tin pan about 9 by 12 

 inches by 2 or more inches deep, have a few common pins bent 

 at right angles near the middle and soldered to the bottom of 



