ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., JANUARY, 1918. 



The Present Crisis. 



When we consider the vast number of deaths from diseases 

 in previous wars, many of which diseases we now know to be 

 wholly or largely diffused by insects ; when we reflect on the 

 illness and death borne by these creatures to our civilian pop- 

 ulation even in times of peace ; when we think of the truly 

 enormous injuries inflicted on our crops, our forests, our 

 stored food and our clothing, we must admit that insects exert 

 an influence on civilization that has been totally, or almost 

 totally, ignored by the professed historians of that subject. 

 We must also concede the immense importance of entomolog- 

 ical science (i) in discriminating the kinds of insects, for not 

 all of those even closely allied are detrimental to human in- 

 terests; (2) in elucidating their physiology and life-history, 

 whereby alone we perceive their points of vulnerability, and 

 (3) in learning their relations to the rest of the world and 

 its changes, including its plant and its animal inhabitants. 

 Unquestionably there is very much yet to be learned in all of 

 these fields. 



The application of these general conclusions to the present 

 crisis manifestly demands that all the insect problems which 

 in any way touch upon the health and efficiency of the army 

 and of the navy and of the civilian population which stands 

 back of and supports them, should be investigated by men 

 trained in entomological work. 



Will we heed and put to good results our previous lessons 

 on insects and human mortality in war? 



Knowledge comes hut wisdom lingers, and he hears a laden hrra>t 

 Full of sad experience passing to the stillness of his rest. 



33 



